A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle” - Abraham Lincoln Human beings from the time unknown have procrastinated for one or the other reason. As a result, we end up loosing up on our goals and remain in mediocrity. But why do we procrastinate and how to fix it? To answer this question we spoke to Darius Foroux who is a productivity guru and an author of an online course Zero Procrastinate. Darius shared secrets of his productivity and ways to beat procrastination. He has also written 2 more books on living a better life. We have also covered the inspiring stories of Mike Cheng of Snip.ly, Jonathan Bull of EmalOctopus and Tamara Olson of Studio Simpatico who talks about their success and failures and how they grew their business.
You will also find tips to find peace, happiness, and success from the likes of Leo Babauta, Steve Pavlina. We also have some great deals on software and tools for your business growth. We hope that you will like the issue as much as we like it while designing and conceptualizing the issue.
Editor-in-chief PETE WILLIAMS
Contributors LEO BABAUTA STEVE PAVLINA DARIUS FOROUX MIKE CHENG JONATHAN BULL TAMARA OLSON
Image Credits freepik.com, unsplash.com
The Editor
Pete Williams
Design
THE CREATIVE CHIMNEY
(www.thecreativechimney.com)
ART DIRECTOR KANIKA GUPTA
U p Scale
01
Life Hacking Cover Story
How to work for only 90 minutes per day and achieve success
MIKE CHENG 29
04 Growth Interview Productivity
contents
DARIUS FOROUX 17
The Only Guide to Happiness You’ll Ever Need
35 JONATHON of EmailOctopus Growth Interview
Olson 43 Tamara Growth Interview
LIFE HACKING
The Only Guide to
Happiness
For some of us, the ultimate goal in life is happiness. Whether we see fulfillment in our work, contentment in our relationships, passion in our hobbies … we strive to find happiness.
You’ll Ever Need
- LEO BABAUTA
“HAPPINESS IS THE MEANING AND THE PURPOSE OF LIFE, THE WHOLE AIM AND END OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.”
– ARISTOTLE
“The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
– Benjamin Franklin
And yet, this search for happiness can be a lifelong search, especially if we look at happiness as something that will come once we achieve certain goals — a nice home, a perfect spouse, the ultimate promotion … and when we get these goals, instead of being happy, we often are looking forward to being happy when we meet our next goals. Happiness shouldn’t be something that happens to us in the future, maybe someday, if things go well. Happiness should be here and now, who we are now, with the people we’re with now, doing the things we’re doing now. And if we’re not with people who make us happy, and doing things that make us happy … then we
should take action to make that happen. That’s the simple formula for happiness. Take action to do the things that make you happy, with the people who make you happy, and to be happy with the person you are now.
DON’T WAIT FOR HAPPINESS. SEIZE IT.
Here’s how — a list of action you can take today to seize that happiness. You don’t have to do these all at once, but you should do most (if not all) of them eventually, and sooner rather than later. Pick one or two and start today.
“IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY, BE.” – LEO TOLSTOY
BE PRESENT. Don’t think about how great things will be in the future. Don’t dwell on what did or didn’t happen in the past. Learn to be in the here and now, and experience life as it’s happening, and appreciate the world for the beauty that it is, right now. Practice makes perfect with this crucial skill.
CONNECT WITH OTHERS. In my experience, very few things can achieve happiness as well as connecting with other human beings, cultivating relationships, bonding with others. Some tips on doing this. ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 02
LIFE HACKING
LIFE HACKING
day, and very little else. It may take awhile to get your life down to your essentials like I have (it took me a few years of careful elimination and rescheduling and saying This might seem almost the same as the “no” to requests that aren’t on my short item above, and in reality it’s an extension list), but it’s worth the effort. of the same concept, a more specific application. Spending time with the people you love is extremely important to happiness … and yet it’s incredible how often we do just the opposite, and spend Everyone’s life has positive and negative time alone, or disconnected from those we aspects — whether you’re happy or not love, or spend time with people we don’t depends largely on which aspects you focus much like. Make it a priority to schedule on. Did you lose today’s softball game? At time with the people you love. Make that least you got to spend time with friends your most important item of the day. doing something fun. Did you sprain your For myself, I have a time when ankle running? Well, your body I cut off work, and the probably needed a week’s rest of the day is for rest anyway, as you were my family. Weekends running too much! Did are exclusively your baby get sick? for my family. Well, at least it’s only a And by setting flu virus and nothing aside this sacred life-threatening … time, I ensure and at least you have my happiness by a wonderful baby to letting nothing nurse to health! You come between me can see my point — and the people I love almost everything has a most. positive side, and focusing on the positives make all the difference. My Auntie Kerry died last week (as you know), and I’m still grieving, but
SPEND TIME WITH THOSE YOU LOVE.
FOCUS ON THE GOOD THINGS.
DO THE THINGS YOU LOVE.
What do you love doing most? Figure out the 4-5 things you love doing most in life, the things that make you happiest, and make those the foundation of your day, every day. Eliminate as much of the rest as possible. For me, the things I love doing are: spending time with my family, writing, reading, and running. I do those things every 02 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
1) I’m happy I spent time with her before her death; 2) her death has brought our family closer together; 3) her suffering has ended; and 4) it reminded me to spend more time with the people I love while they’re still alive.
DO WORK YOU LOVE.
An extension, of course, of doing the things you love, but applied to work. Are you already doing the work you love? Then you’re one of the lucky ones, and you should appreciate how lucky you are. If you aren’t doing the work you love, you should make it a priority to try to find work you’re passionate about, and to steer your career in that direction.
Take myself for example: I was doing work that I was good at ( just last year), but that I wasn’t passionate about. I was passionate about writing, and so I pursued blogging … and with a year of hard work, was able to quit my day job and blog full time. I’m so much happier these days!
LOSE YOURSELF IN YOUR WORK.
Once you’ve found work you love, the key is to lose yourself in it … clear away all distractions, find an interesting and challenging task, and just pour all your energy and focus into that task. With practice, you’ll forget about the outside world. There are few work-related joys that equal this feeling. Read more.
HELP OTHERS.
Is there any better feeling than helping a fellow human being? There aren’t many. And it’s not too hard — here are 25 ways. Find time for peace. With the hectic pace of life these days, it’s hard to find a moment of peace. But if you can make time for solitude and quiet, it can be one of the happiest parts of your day. Here’s how.
FIND TIME FOR PEACE.
With the hectic pace of life these days, it’s hard to find a moment of peace. But if you can make time for solitude and quiet, it can be one of the happiest parts of your day. ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 04
NOTICE THE SMALL THINGS.
BECOME A LIFELONG LEARNER.
EXERCISE.
Instead of waiting for the big things to happen — marriage, kids, house, nice car, big promotion, winning the lottery — find happiness in the small things that happen every day. Little things like having a quiet cup of coffee in the early morning hours, or the delicious and simple taste of berries, or the pleasure of reading a book with your child, or taking a walk with your partner. Noticing these small pleasures, throughout your day, makes a huge difference.
I find an inordinate amount of pleasure in reading, in learning about new things, in enriching my knowledge as I get older. I think spending time reading some of the classics, as well as passionately pursuing new interests, is energy well invested. Try to do a little of it every day, and see if it doesn’t make you happier.
Go outside and take a walk each day, or take the time to watch a sunset or sunrise. Or find a body of water — the ocean, a lake, a river, a pond — and spend time taking a look at it, contemplating it. If you’re lucky enough to live near some woods, or a mountain, or a canyon, go hiking. Time in You don’t need to join a Zendo or get a nature is time invested in your happiness. mat or learn any lotus positions, but the simplest form of meditation can really help you to be present and to get out of the worrying part of your head. You can do it right now: close your eyes and simply I absolutely believe in miracles, and try to focus on your breathing as long as believe that they are all around us, possible. Pay attention to the breath as every day. My children are all miracles. it comes into your body, and then as it The kindness of strangers are miracles. goes out. When you feel your mind start The life growing all around us is a miracle. to wander, don’t fret, but just simply Find those miracles in your life, and enjoy acknowledge the other thoughts, and then the majesty of them. return to your breathing. Do this a little each day and you’ll get better at it.
DEVELOP COMPASSION Compassion is developing a sense of shared suffering with others … and taking steps to alleviate the suffering of others. I think too often we forget about the suffering of others while focusing on our own suffering, and if we learned to share the suffering of others, our suffering would seem insignificant as a result. Compassion is an extremely valuable skill to learn, and you get better with practice. Here’s how.
BE GRATEFUL Learning to be grateful for what’s in our lives, for the people who have enriched our lives, goes a long way toward happiness. It helps us to appreciate what we have and what we have received, and the people who have helped us. Read more. 05 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE This is really about identifying the things you love (see above) and then eliminating everything else as much as possible. By simplifying your life in this way, you create time for your happiness, and you reduce the stress and chaos in your life. In my experience, living a very simple life is also a pleasure in itself.
SLOW
DOWN.
Similar to simplifying, slowing down is just a matter of reminding yourself that there’s no need to rush through life. Schedule less things on your calendar, and more space between things. Learn to eat slower, drive slower, walk slower (unless you’re doing it for exercise). Going slowly helps to reduce stress, and improve the pleasure of doing things, and also keeps you in the present moment.
I’ve written about the pleasures of exercise many times. It can be hard to start an exercise program (here’s how) but once you get going, it relieves stress and can really give you a good feeling. I feel joyful every time I go out for a run!
SPEND TIME IN NATURE.
MEDITATE.
FIND THE MIRACLES IN LIFE.
LEARN TO ACCEPT. One of the challenges for people like me — people who want to improve themselves and change the world — is learning to accept things as they are. Sometimes it’s better to learn to accept, and to love, the world as it is, and people as they are, rather than to try to make everything and everyone conform to an impossible ideal. I’m not saying you should accept cruelty and injustice, but learn to love things when they are less than “perfect”.
“MAN IS FOND OF COUNTING HIS TROUBLES, BUT HE DOES NOT COUNT HIS JOYS. IF HE COUNTED THEM UP AS HE OUGHT TO, HE WOULD SEE THAT EVERY LOT HAS ENOUGH HAPPINESS PROVIDED FOR IT.”
– FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
TO FOLLOW US ON TWITTER...
TAP ON THE PHONE
How to work for only
90
minutes per day and achieve success
The typical American office worker only does about 90 minutes of real work per workday. The rest of each workday is largely spent on distractions like reading the news, web surfing, socializing with coworkers, snacking, taking coffee breaks, shuffling papers around, processing irrelevant emails, needless delay tactics, playing games, and daydreaming. Moreover, American office workers are among the world’s most productive. In many other countries, even less work gets done each day.
PRODUCTIVITY This stat hasn’t changed much in decades, despite massive investments in time management and productivity training by many companies. We have more technology to assist us in being productive, but we also have more to distract us.
context and stick with it, which makes you more efficient. Your theme may be a project you’re working on, a type of work like catching up on correspondence, or anything that lets your brain load in one clear context and stick with it.
The general problem is that we’re still applying an industrial age model to the productivity of knowledge workers. It makes sense to pay attention to hours worked if the productive output for each hour is roughly the same. That may be true for repetitive labor, but it doesn’t apply much to knowledge workers.
2. DEFINE THE FINISH LINE
For a knowledge worker, what’s the difference between an hour of peak productivity vs. a low productivity hour? That peak hour could easily be 10x more productive in terms of the volume of work completed and the results generated. What sense does it make to spend more time at the office if you’re normally operating at less than 20% of capacity? Why not simply do 90 minutes of real work and then go home for the day? What if you could complete a whole day’s work in only 90 minutes? What would that 90-minute period look like?
Focus Blocks Here are some recommendations for having a very productive 90-min period (let’s call it a focus block):
1. PICK ONE THEME
Instead of doing a bunch of random actions, pick one clear theme for the block. This allows your brain to load in a singular
See your focus block as a fast dash to the finish line. But where is the finish line? What does it look like? Having a clear goal that’s only 90 minutes away will help you focus. Don’t worry if you don’t cross the finish line each time; it’s there to help you focus, so aim for it, but accept that sometimes you’ll miss. Some examples: Write and post a new blog entry. Process items in my email inbox till it’s completely empty. Plan and schedule all my focus blocks for the upcoming week.
3. LIST THE ACTION STEPS
List the specific actions you’ll take during this block. For some blocks this is really helpful. For others it may not be necessary if the steps are already clear. I wouldn’t list out my action steps for writing a new article since that process is very familiar to me, but I’d list brainstorm and list steps for an unfamiliar new project to make it easier to get started. Some examples: Delete all obvious spam and clutter from my email inbox first. Then quickly process all messages that I can handle in less than two minutes each. Next, sort and prioritize longer messages for response. Respond to my most important longer messages till I’m at the 90-minute point. Surrender to the realization that it’s not a good use of my time to reply to the rest, and just archive them to empty the inbox. ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 12
PRODUCTIVITY
4. ENSURE ZERO INTERRUPTIONS
Do whatever it takes to ensure that you will not be interrupted under any circumstances during your focus block. If necessary, tell people in advance that you will not be available for the next 90 minutes; let them know that you will be available after that. Lock your door if you can. If you can’t guarantee that you won’t be interrupted in your current work environment, then do your focus block somewhere else. You’ll be much more productive and your focus will be deeper if you know for certain that you won’t be interrupted.
5. WORK FAST
Think fast. Move fast. Work fast. If you catch yourself going slow, speed up! Imagine that you’re in a race, and you have to maintain a strong pace for the full 90 minutes. After that you can rest. With practice this gets easier.
6. ALLOW NO DISTRACTIONS During your focus block, you must do your pre-defined work and nothing else. Keep your cell phone off. Turn off any notifications that might interrupt you. Turn off your Internet access if you won’t need it during this block. Do not check email during this time. Do not take a coffee break or snack break. Use the bathroom during this time only if you must.
I think you get the idea.
Many people spend their workdays in a gray zone marathon. That’s why it takes them 7-8 hours to do 90 minutes of work. They work slowly and inefficiently. Their 13 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
PRODUCTIVITY
Avoid the Gray Zone &Take Real Breaks work time is cluttered with distractions and interruptions. They begin late and wind down early. Most of the time, they’re only half working. Instead of doing a gray zone marathon each day, cycle between real work and real breaks. This will be much more efficient, even if you work only half as many hours or less. Don’t immediately go from one focus block right into another. After you complete a focus block, celebrate your achievement. Then assess where you are. Tune into your energy and see how you feel. If you’re still feeling alert and energized, you may only need a short break. Take 5-10 minutes to stretch, go to the bathroom, and have some fresh fruit. Then feel free to dive right into another focus block. If you feel tired, it’s good to eat something and/or take a nap. If you feel like doing something physical, go for a walk or take an exercise break. If you feel like you could use some emotional renewal, you may wish to meditate, socialize, or read some inspiring material. How long should your breaks be? Make them as long as necessary till you’re ready for another round of focused work. Sometimes you may only need a few minutes. Other times it may be wise to take a couple hours off, especially if the previous block was particularly draining. Between focus blocks, seek to refresh and renew your energy until you’re ready to
handle another focus block. Do your best not to load up your breaks with gray zone tasks like email since that’s more likely to drain you. I recommend batching small tasks into their own focus block (including email). But if it’s just a quick one-minute email check now and then, that probably won’t be too bad, but never do email checks during a block unless it’s critical for the completion of the block. Realize that if you only complete one focus block in a whole day, you’ve still done as much real work as the typical American office worker does in a full eight-hour day. And if you only complete two blocks, you’re twice as productive as most. On a super productive day, you may complete five or six blocks, which is like getting a full week’s worth of work done in one day.
Do a Week of Work in a Day During one of the most productive periods of my life, when I was doing contract game programming work, I’d normally work from 9am to noon, take a one hour break for lunch, and then work from 1pm until 5pm or 6pm. But I’d subdivide the work into shorter focus blocks of deep concentration. At the start of each day, I’d define the next milestone I wanted to reach, such as a short list of new features to add. Then I’d make a short list of action steps in my work journal (just an everyday spiral notebook). Sometimes I wouldn’t bother to list the action steps if they seemed obvious. Then I’d program the items on the list. Finally, I’d
compile the software, test the program, fix bugs, and tweak the implementation until I was satisfied. A typical milestone would take me about 45-90 minutes to achieve. Since I was programming games, testing the program meant playing the game a little to test the new features as well as the overall gameplay. In effect, the testing phase gave my brain a nice break from designing algorithms and writing code. When I finished one cycle like this, I’d feel a nice little sense of accomplishment. I might take a quick stretch break. Then I’d make a new list and repeat. In the morning, I would complete a few of these cycles, perhaps three of them. In the afternoon I’d do several more. My game projects progressed very quickly during this time. Every day I added many new features. I could have a prototype of a whole new game running in just a few days this way. With today’s better development tools, the work can progress even faster. During lunch each day, I took a complete break to restore my mental energy. I rarely went to lunch with my co-workers. Usually I brought a sack lunch with me, but I left the office to go eat. I’d drive to a nearby park, sit on the grass with my back against a tree, and eat alone in silence. I’d let go of work and just relax. After eating, I’d lie back on the grass and take a 20-minute nap, or I’d stare up at the sky and totally zone out. I’d enjoy the breeze and listen to the birds. I gave the brain circuits I needed for programming work a very restful break. Then I’d go back to my car, return to work, and crank out a few more cycles before leaving for the day. ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 14
PRODUCTIVITY
Test, Train, and Experiment If you aren’t used to a working rhythm of alternating focus blocks with rest periods, you may need to practice this method for a while to get used to it. I expect you’ll really like it once you taste this kind of flow. Doing a full day’s work in about 90 minutes is not only efficient; it’s also motivating and energizing. Cycles of about 90 minutes usually work well once you get up to speed. But you may find that shorter cycles like 45 or 60 minutes work better for you. You may also find that different cycle lengths are more suited to different types of work. Sometimes I’ll keep going for 2.5 hours (or more) if I’m feeling good, especially when writing a new article. Some people like having scheduled focus blocks with scheduled breaks, so everything is a set duration. They’re sticklers for starting and stopping at set times. There’s some evidence that this helps your brain optimize its performance if your cycles are the same every day. For instance, you might have focus blocks at 5:30-7:00am, 8:00-9:30am, 10:30am-noon, 1pm-2:30pm, and 3:30-5pm, which would give you five 90-minute focus blocks with hour-long breaks in between. This would be a super productive day that would see you doing as much real work in one day as the typical American office worker does in a week, but you’re only working for 7.5 hours total. Other people prefer a more organic approach, deciding based on their energy levels how low each focus block and break should be. 15 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
This is how I work most of the time. A modest but still highly productive schedule might entail having three focus blocks per day. You could easily complete a great deal of work this way. Many top creative workers only work 3-5 hours per day, but they work with deep focus and zero interruptions during that time. Don’t succumb to the cultural bias that may try to convince you that working 8+ hours per day makes you productive. That may be true for physical labor and some repetitive tasks, but it’s not true for knowledge workers and creative types. Many people enjoy trevmendous flow and achieve great results by working in short high energy, bursts of motivation and drive. Try this for yourself, and you may never want to return to the gray zone of long, unproductive workdays again.
About Author: Steve Pavlina is widely recognized as one of the most successful personal development bloggers in the world, with his work attracting more than 100 million visits to StevePavlina.com. He has written more than 1300 articles and recorded many audio programs on a broad range of self-help topics, including productivity, relationships, and spirituality.
COVER STORY
COVER STORY
DARIUS FOROUX Darius Foroux is a blogger and consultant with a background in marketing. He studied marketing at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. After he did his master’s degree in 2010, he started a business with his father. They sold laundry machines to hotels, restaurants and to the professional market. After doing that for 2-3 years, he also wanted to get some experience at the corporation, so he did a job in London in a technology advisory company. He did that on the side as well while still running the business. That’s when he really started getting into productivity because he had a lot of stuff on his plate. He started researching on how he could be more productive. He wanted to get more stuff done in less time and that’s how he became what he is now which is to teach and write about productivity. In a candid chat with ScaleUp magazine editorial team, he talked about his life journey.
SUCCESS, FAILURES AND LIFE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR Laundry business started by Darius still exists today, that’s the only business that can be called successful. After about 2 years of operation, he thought that he was pretty experienced in marketing so he started an agency with a friend from college which failed very early. It failed as they did not know what they were doing. They said to themselves that we should do this and that’s how they started without a plan. They just did some networking, tried to get some clients and did their websites and did some marketing for them but they did not have aany strategy, they did not have any systems in place. His friend lost interest in the business after 6 months and decided to take a job as he was not really enjoying it. They did not connect at a personal level and discussed the way they were doing business. So the whole business failed. From this experience, he learned that if you want to start a business and especially with someone else, you need to have a strategy in place because it is a large part of your life and you need to try to think ahead. If you don’t have a strategy, you are just working on tactics and that’s what they did. So these days Darius is more focused on strategies instead of tactics.
TIPS F SCAL OR I N BUSI G NESS
In the beginning, the biggest challenge was to scale the business. As per him when you start a business you are often very enthusiastic and especially if you are passionate about what you are doing. As an entrepreneur, you want to grow the business but you can not really grow a business unless you have a system in place. Darius shares a personal experience of growing his online venture. For his writing, blogging and online course, he spent the first year on ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 14 18
COVER STORY investing all his time in building systems in terms of what would happen when someone subscribes to his newsletter and what would happen when someone buys his course. Similarly, he ensured if everything is arranged in terms of behind the scenes like perfect experience for people who sign up to his courses or who read his blogs.
COVER STORY
HOW TO BEAT PROCRASTINATION? BUILDING SYSTEMS FOR GROWTH
All this require systems because it is impossible to do it manually. If you have a system than the beautiful thing about it is that later on, you can just focus on what you are trying to do for e.g. writing.
One of the best ways to learn is to just study the people you admire. For instance, he really admires Seth Godin, he also read his blogs so in terms of writing he has tried to study him.
Now he has a whole system in terms of distribution as well so he not only publish it on his own blog but also publishes on Medium, LinkedIn. So you even need a system for your distribution. Those are the things that initially he found very challenging because he didn’t have the knowledge and experience into that. That is definitely something that he has come to learn and he thinks that’s the most valuable things one can invest time as an entrepreneur.
He prefers to learn by studying how other people do it instead of buying a book on say writing or marketing which he probably would also do but he would also probably spend more time studying other bloggers or writers like how do they format their posts, what are the headlines etc. He just read the blogs and takes notes. If you are interested in online marketing you can just sign up for the bunch of people or companies that you are following, see how they do their online marketing and study like that. That’s a great way to learn.
As a human being, it is very natural for us to procrastinate. Darius has been talking and writing about procrastination and he admits that we all procrastinate because there is always a difference between what we say we want to do and what we actually do. He thinks that it very normal for everyone but at the same time, you don’t have to be a procrastinator because you can fight that by creating systems in your life. According to him, our natural tendency is to procrastinate because if someone asks you about your favorite thing to do, you would probably say that you would just hang out in-house and maybe watch a movie or go out whatever. But that’s not something that’s useful, that’s not going to bring anything to your life. “So once you have that realization, you say the things I probably love to do are not useful and not bringing me anything or adding value to my life. What is adding value to my life is work and getting things done. That’s why I focus on Procrastination and that’s why I write about it, teach about systems that you can apply to your life, so you can get more things done”, says Darius. He gives an example of a productivity technique. The technique called the Pomodoro Method is also backed by the science which a lot of people have heard about it, but a lot of people also don’t stick with it. What he has found out from his survey’s and talking to people that people start something and then they stop doing it, they start the Pomodoro method for a couple of days and then they stop doing it. Why is that? Research also shows that it takes at least on an average 66 days to form a new habit and lot of people stop way before they reach those 66 days. So his tip is if you want to try something, first of all, think about whether it is valuable to your life, is it useful? Second of all don’t stop after 1 week. Even though it is very easy to do it. Just understand that it takes a long time, especially for things that are very difficult for instance the Pomodoro method sounds easy and it is easy but to keep it up for a long time is not easy. So it takes a longer time to apply it to your life and get it into your system ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 20
HIS JOURNEY AS A WRITER 2. Pulizzi and his wife,
Pam Kozelka, co-founded what is now Darius started writing in 2015 when he was known Marketing doing a jobas inContent London along with hisInstitute laundry (CMI) in 2007.that period for a year and business. During
a half, he learned a lot so he wanted to share the was learnings with other people. He 3. CMI originally called Junta42, was looking for a way to share the ideas and which he has described as “a matching writing was the first thought that came to brands who hisservice mind. So for he started writing andneeded sharing itto find content marketing agencies with friends and colleagues and people in histo network andtheir the feedback was good. execute projects.” He shared his work on the internet via 4. In 2010, they pivoted to focus on LinkedIn and the people he knew were training officially became sharing it onand social media, Reddit etc.known And as Content Marketing that’s how it started to pickInstitute. up and that’s how he started writing.
5. CMI’s headquarters are located
He is often asked that from where does he in Cleveland, Ohio, because that’s get such good ideas for writing. “My answer is Pulizzi’s always thehometown. same. If you want to have the output you need an input. So you want to have as output you want toWorld, have the a 6. ideas Content Marketing input of good quality content. And for me conference for content marketers the main source of ideas are books. So I read held every September in Cleveland, two books a week”, says Darius.
Ohio, debuted in 2011. Featuring more than 50 expert speakers, more Once he started doing this his life changed a than lot because only do you get a lot of 600 not marketers attended the new ideas, youevent. also improve your focus and inaugural
you improve the state of your brain. If you read more, it’s like exercise for the body. If 7. read On Twitter, he brain became as as the you a lot, your getsknown stronger “Godfather of Content Marketing.” well. So if you want to have a lot of ideas, you need a lotHis of team good inputs, so that can be Fun fact: actually introduced from a lot of things. It could be from books, him with that moniker at the first reading blog posts, watching interesting Content Marketing World event. videos, documentaries. So that’s the main thing. Get good quality input.
21 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
SCALING PERSONAL GROWTH
Personal growth is quite a large and broad topic. Most people connect with personal growth when we talk about personal growth in terms of overcoming fear or overcoming self-doubt.
Darius thinks one of the biggest reasons why people never start, why they also procrastinate is because they have a fear and he is not different. He believes that we all have fears but in today’s world, fear is not very useful. We were living may be a few thousand years ago when we were living a very unsafe world and there were threats looming around every corner than fear was useful. But these days fear is not useful so according to Darius when you start looking at fear from a practical point of view, you see that it can only stand in the way between you and your goals. So if you want to get into personal growth, one of the first things you want to read about or research and apply to your own life is how to overcome fear.
TOOLS USED FOR WRITING
The no. 1 tool that he recommends is the Grammarly. It is a grammar checker tool which comes with a browser plugin. It has been very useful to him. If you want to use MS Word or Google Docs or whatever you want, it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is the quality of the content and the Grammarly is one tool that can help you to improve your writing. For instance, it checks on passive voice which is not recommended in writing, because that’s the most challenging part he believes.
TIPS TO PUBLISH IN MAJOR PUBLICATIONS In the beginning, when he started obviously people didn’t know him at all, so he would just go about finding editors from publications that were especially in his field of productivity or entrepreneurship. He used to search on Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn to find editors and pitched them his idea or the whole article about the topic he was writing in. He would send an email to the editors saying, ”I wrote this article, I think that would be a great match for your audience, do you want to publish it?” That’s how he got published in some of the big publications and after that when his writings started picking up from Medium, he noticed that a lot of editors contacted him. So the best way to get started is to just distribute it and get in front of people and write content that matches the audience of the publication that you are contacting.
BUILDING BRAND AND BECOMING EXPERT One of the most important things to do is to be genuine because often lot of people try to be someone they are not. “People look at successful people and they say you know I want to be like this and I want to be like
that and that is not really a sustainable strategy because the best person you can be is yourself”, says Darius. He also suggests not to show everything about your personality, just highlight one specific part of it and try to communicate that trait the most. Darius, for example, is a very straightforward person and very direct and that’s what he also highlights in his writing as well. When people follow him or when they subscribe to his newsletter they just get the truth. That’s what he recommends to people as well. So if you want to build a brand, don’t try to be everything because if you are trying to be everything to everyone, you will appeal to no one. The best way to go where he believes is to just pick out something specific and try to communicate that message instead of just trying to be everything because that is very difficult online. It is almost impossible to show your whole personality online, even if you look at guys who are very popular like Gary Vaynerchuk. They also highlight one aspect of their character and you see that across all their video’s or posts. So the best way to go is to study the people that you admire again and see how they position themselves and often you come to a conclusion that they are very consistent in the way they communicate to people. Do not copy but look at your strengths and focus on only on the strengths and forget about the weaknesses and this is something that he learned from Gary Vaynerchuk as well. ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 22
PRODUCTIVITY AND MOTIVATION
ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS
One of the most important thing for Darius is the daily exercise. So the days that he doesn’t do exercise, he is less productive and that’s what he found in his life through experimentation. Exercises and reading are the critical factors of productivity for him.
A lot of founder’s and people who start the business and create products often feel uncomfortable with the distribution that is just getting their work in front of other people or selling their work.
Every day, no matter what he gets at least 30 mins of moderate to highintensity exercise. High intensity is about 3-4 times a week and the rest he gets at least a good 30 min walk or 30 min cycle or goes to the gym. For him to get the most out of his day and to make sure that he is not only getting a lot of work done in less time but also have time to do the things that make him happy like spending time with people he love, he gets his exercising and reading done every day, This helps him stay alert and more focused.
According to Darius, there is nothing wrong with trying to distribute your work and trying to get it in front of people because you don’t have to feel uncomfortable about it.
COVER STORY
THINK STRAIGHT Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
If people never find out about your great product, they can never use it. And that’s the no. 1 advise that he would probably give himself when he started and he would also share with other people. He further adds that you should be open to feedback from your users and use it to improve your product or service. Don’t be afraid to listen to the feedback, even if its negative one.
And once he does those things, he has the energy to apply all the productivity tips and hacks and tricks and that kind of things and that’s what he also teaches in his course.
23 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 24
Awaken the Giant Within :
How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny! BOOK DESCRIPTION Wake up and take control of your life! From the bestselling author of Inner Strength, Unlimited Power, and MONEY Master the Game, Anthony Robbins, the nation’s leader in the science of peak performance, shows you his most effective strategies and techniques for mastering your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, and your life. The acknowledged expert in the psychology of change, Anthony Robbins provides a stepby-step program teaching the fundamental lessons of self-mastery that will enable you to discover your true purpose, take control of your life, and harness the forces that shape your destiny.
ABOUT AUTHOR For more than 30 years Tony Robbins’ passion has been helping people BREAK THROUGH and take their lives to another level—no matter how successful they already are—in the areas that matter most: their business, personal finance, intimate relationships, careers and health. Tony Robbins has helped more than 50 million people from more than 100 countries transform their lives and their businesses through his books, audio programs, health products, live events and personal coaching. He’s been fortunate enough to work with everyone from presidents of countries to some of the true legends of entertainment, sports and the business world. But his work is not limited to Fortune 500 CEOs and athletes. He has a special passion for smallbusiness owners, parents and students. 27 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 28
while building a new company together. It was through this experience that I met my current cofounders, Christopher Bowal and Nigel Gutzmann.
Tell us about your company. What were the challenges you faced while growing your company and what you did to fix them.
Mike Cheng is the founder of Snip.ly, a social media conversion company and Lumen5, a video content marketing company. Mike spoke to ScaleUp Magazine on his personal and entrepreneurial life.
Tell us about your professional journey so far? I was born in Hong Kong, raised in Vancouver, but my professional journey began in Toronto. During my final years at Simon Fraser University, I was accepted into a program called The Next 36. The program selects 36 ambitious students from across Canada to form 12 teams of 3 and each team is coached by mentors to build a startup over the course of 9 months. Every participant from across the country had to gather in Toronto and live with their cofounders in a dormitory 29 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
We launched Sniply in early 2014 and operated for several years with great success. However, the technology industry is a fast-moving space and we were quickly faced with somewhat of an existential crisis. Sniply helps businesses manage hyperlinks for marketing purposes, but we observed an internet that was increasingly moving away from text and rapidly towards rich media content such as images and videos. Hyperlinks thrive on the open web, but the open web was losing market share to a new private web, namely Facebook. With businesses changing their marketing strategy from link sharing to content production, we too had an important decision to make. Even though the platform was still growing and all the signals show that we should move full speed ahead, we could not ignore the threat of becoming obsolete in an evolving landscape. As a result of a very difficult decision, we decided to go all-in on developing a new product that will allow us to capture the rich media trend. The result was Lumen5, a video creation platform which we launched in 2017, and the metrics are already showing faster growth rates compared to when Sniply was first released several years earlier.
GROWTH INTERVIEW
Your Successes/failures in life. One of the greatest successes in my life is undoubtedly the progress we have made with Sniply. It was my first real attempt at building a technology company and the result was far beyond anything I had imagined. Sniply powers over 41 million hyperlinks and has reached over 256 million people from across the globe. One of our proudest achievements is to have come this far by bootstrapping since day 1, staying lean, and growing without any funding. One of my greatest failures has been to continue running my previous startup, Needle, for longer than I should have. Needle was a hiring platform for creative professionals. Our prospects were saying great things about our product, and our investors were applauding our progress. Yet my instincts told me that the opportunity was just not there. We continued developing the platform, wasting valuable time and resources, which we eventually terminated. Contrary to popular belief, there is no shortage of positive feedback. Praises come easy and criticisms are hard to find. It was through this experience that I learned the importance of listening to your gut as an entrepreneur.
What choices did you make in your life which made a significant difference in your life? The choice to pursue entrepreneurship has become far more life-changing than I had anticipated. As I have come to realize, entrepreneurship is more of a lifestyle than a career path. My work has become
so much more than a job that I work. I have my operational responsibilities such as customer support and product management, but I also have a whole different realm of responsibilities. I think about the type of work culture we are building, the opportunities we are presenting to employees, the lives we are helping them build through our company. There is great complexity to aligning practical business goals with more profound culture and community goals. Working with top-tier talent naturally implies that they have many other career options, hence a lot of thought goes into how we can cultivate a talented team while ensuring that everyone’s work is meaningful and fulfilling. With power comes responsibility, and this responsibility has shaped me.
Walk us through your workday? I always start my day with our users and customers. I go through a lot of user communications such as support tickets and contact form submissions. We are a team of engineers building a product for marketers. This is why it is absolutely essential for me to remain in constant contact with our users, to ensure that I can always have a thorough understanding of what the market needs at any given time. These conversations with our users often trigger new ideas which result in innovations that propel our company forward. Customer support is a two-way street. Helping our users resolve their problems is just the tip of the iceberg. Understanding why they encountered the problem, why they care at all about the ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 30
GROWTH INTERVIEW problem and exploring the countless ways we can solve each problem is the true substance of customer communication. Following customer support, I often dive into product management work to maintain a healthy alignment between what our users want and what our team is working on. I review our product roadmap daily and check up on progress on the various components we are working on to ensure that everything comes together on schedule. Since my background is in design, I also regularly go through our product and perform some quality assurance work while keeping an eye out for potential areas to improve the user experience.
How do you keep yourself productive and motivated? I believe that motivation is a cycle. By surrounding myself with driven individuals, I am motivated by their commitment to the product. In turn, my drive inspires my colleagues, and so forth. The culture and environment is the key to keeping everyone productive and motivated. Not everything goes as planned, but as long as we tackle every problem as a team, the team spirit always carries us through the obstacles. Asides from the company culture and work environment, I am a strong believer in overall health. Sleep early, eat well and take breaks. They say an average “overnight success” takes 10 years, which means pacing and slowly building a strong foundation should be more beneficial than rushing and overworking yourself.
What do you do to keep yourself on the growth path? I believe curiosity is the key component 31 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
GROWTH INTERVIEW for personal growth. I always try to learn a little bit of everything. When I have time, I often do a little bit of coding, I’ll make a few sales calls, do some design work, chat with some customers, and participate in as many aspects of our business as possible. I believe growth is all about learning, and effective learning is driven by curiosity.
are naturally inclined to focus on the little things, we should never lose sight of the truly important things like family and friends. At the end of the day, we work in pursuit of happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. I always enjoy books that remind us of why we started our journeys in the first place.
What tools/apps do you use for managing work and life?
People who have inspired you and made a difference in your life.
I strongly believe that a healthy mind and body will net the best long-term results. I use an app called Gratitude which is what they call a “gratitude journal” and I have a habit of logging things that I feel thankful for. This is an important practice for me because life can move so quickly and it is important for me to make sure I acknowledge things that I am grateful for. I also have an app called “Daylio” which I use to track my mood throughout the day. This helps me gather some insights on when I am most and least productive, allowing me to plan my days accordingly. I also use the “Sleep Cycle” app to measure the quality of my sleep, as I believe good rest is a key component to productivity. On occasion, I will also use “HabitBull” to build new habits from everything as generic as regular exercise to something as specific as drinking 8 cups of water each day.
Your favorite books? A friend recently recommended a book called “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F” which I found quite enjoyable. The book talks about how, in the grand scheme of things, most things simply do not matter. In the business world, so many things can happen on any given day. As much as we
I grew up with the fascinating stories of Steve Jobs. Before Jobs, entrepreneurship was never really something I had considered. In my mind, it was all briefcases and business suits. With his turtleneck and eccentric personality, Jobs broke that business stereotype for me. I became fascinated by the idea of breaking rules and building products. It was fascinating to me because Jobs was not some historical figure I learn about in textbooks, and his story was unfolding before my eyes as I was going growing up. His departure and return to Apple, involvement with Pixar, and all the product launches along the way. Although he was by no means a personal mentor and we certainly never met, but I do consider Steve Jobs to be an inspiration in my life.
How do you hire your team? What traits do you look for while hiring? We look for the authenticity of character and genuine curiosity. Many things do not withstand the test of time. Our product may change, the technology we use may change, the skillsets we need may change, and so the only constant thing that
remains is a character.
What advice did you get which changed your life? One of my mentors, Dean Hopkins, once told me that I should see every stakeholder in our business as a family member. He calls this “the extended family”. This includes customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and just about everyone that has anything to do with your business. This advice was important because it introduced me to the idea that business building is really about looking at the bigger picture. It taught me to care for and provide value to everyone involved in the organization. As a business, we must provide value for our customers, create opportunities for our employees, generate returns for our investors, and everyone is part of an ecosystem which promptly falls apart if anyone gets neglected or left behind.
What advice would you give to people looking for success and growth in personal and professional life? I believe the most important insight is to realize that nobody truly knows what they are doing. People, regardless of how successful they are, are almost always living life one step at a time. There are too many infinite possibilities in everything we do, and there is no such thing as a perfect plan. Be comfortable with diving into the unknown, be confident that you will only get better at improvising. Curiosity and courage are the only two things you need to grow.
ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 32
MEET
Jonathan
of EmailOctopus
GROWTH INTERVIEW Founded in 2014 with a London headquarters, EmailOctopus now sends billions of emails on behalf of a vast range of customers. Their small, dedicated, team works to create the most affordable email marketing platform in the world. We spoke to Jonathan who is the founder of EmailOctopus, an email marketing software company based out of London. Journey so far I’ve always been interested in programming. Building websites started as a hobby when I was 8 and I set up my first business when I was 15. It was called PseudoMailer and was basically a platform for people to send prank messages – exactly the sort of business a 15-year-old would start. But it did surprisingly well and I kept it running as a side project through university, earning enough to give me extra pocket money until I was 24. After university I worked as a developer at the Royal Opera House and then moved to a startup called CoinDesk where I worked my way up to become Director of Technology. It was a great opportunity for me to develop my technical skills as well as teaching me the benefits and challenges of working for a start up. I’d been running my business EmailOctopus on the side for two and a half years before I finally took the plunge, quit my job and went full time just over a year ago.
About EmailOctopus EmailOctopus is an affordable email marketing platform. Our aim is to make email marketing more accessible and easyto-use for our customers. We provide the usual features you’d expect from an email service provider – subscriber management, campaigns, performance reports, automated emails. Our users connect a free Amazon Web Services account, which their emails are sent through. Amazon’s infrastructure is bulletproof, so deliverability is high and costs are low. We’re a small team and we’re all learning on the job to some extent, so there have definitely been challenges along the way. We’re a skilled group of programmers and marketers but we don’t have any formal training in design, which means we inevitably slow down when building out the UX for new features. Until we grow enough to invest in some in-house UX expertise we try to overcome that by taking as much inspiration as we can from other SaaS companies’ designs. In fact, we recently put together a website of best-in-class SaaS design: https:// lookatthatsaas.com/
Successes/failures in life One of the biggest successes I’ve had with EmailOctpous was hiring Tom, our COO, very early on. At the time we were tiny and hardly making any money, so it felt like an extravagance – even a risk – taking ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 36
GROWTH INTERVIEW
GROWTH INTERVIEW
on another paid staff member to build the business with me. But without Tom’s expertise, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
stand up each morning for 15 minutes where we review what we did yesterday and set our focus for the day. Then I’ll be in the office until 7ish – the working day is Going full time on EmailOctopus actually a mix of developing new features, keeping came from a failure. The startup that I our customers happy and all the usual was working at the time was acquired by admin that keeps the business afloat. another company and all of us in the UK And I’ll always make sure I get to spend team were let go. While it was difficult some time with Alfie, our office dog. to say goodbye to something I’d put so much time and effort into, I saw it as an opportunity to finally branch out on my own.
Your productivity & motivation secrets
Choices made which had a significant difference in life I wasn’t always set on going to university and I’m so glad I did. I spent a year doing customer support in a call center before I realized that I wanted to work in tech and I decided to do a BSc in Software Engineering. It gave me a great foundation in my technical skills, led me to move to London and helped me get my first job as a programmer.
I love what I do and the truth is that I never struggle to stay motivated. Solving problems, building new things for customers and working with the team is always good fun. That said, get great feedback from our customers always gives me a boost – I’ll always check in to see what people are saying about us, and that motivates me to continually do better.
What do you do to keep yourself on the growth path?
The main thing is keeping in touch with our customers, listening to their feedback, building the new features that they want and trying to provide the best possible I start the day by checking my emails service. As the platform has grown and and making sure nothing’s gone wrong improved over the years, we’ve attracted overnight – if we’ve had an issue then I’ll and kept more and more customers. get working straight away to ensure it’s resolved. Then I usually cycle the short journey to We’re trying hard to build a remote team, work and spend a bit of time catching up which comes with challenges, so Slack with the team when I get in. We have a
How does your workday look like?
Tools you use
37 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
is essential for keeping us in contact throughout the day. It also helps build a sense of being part of the team, even for those of us not in the office. Trello’s great for keeping on top of tasks and we use a good old fashioned whiteboard to plan and prioritize our work.
will be excited about working hard to grow EmailOctopus. And as we’re a small business we want people who will thrive working as part of a small, close-knit team.
What advice did you Your favorite books get which changed I’m a programmer first and an entrepreneur your life? second so, to be honest, I probably don’t spend enough time reading and learning about how to be better at business. I’d always prefer to spend my time developing new features.
Although I’ve always had my own side projects which have earned a bit of extra cash, I never really thought that it would be possible to build a self-sustaining business myself without taking outside investment. It wasn’t until I met my friend Abs – who was building his own bootstrapped business at Working in startup circles, you meet lots of the time – that I realized I could build my inspiring people every day who are working side project into a legitimate business and hard and taking personal risk to make their work for myself. ideas succeed. I’m lucky to work closely with friends who inspire me – like Abs at Payhip, Johnny at Ticket Tailor and my brother Gareth who runs Bulldog, a digital marketing agency.
Your idol
What advice would you give to people looking for success How d you hire your and growth in team? What traits personal and professional life? do you look for There’s always time to do what you love while hiring? and try new things – don’t make excuses. My background is in programming so I try to build a diverse team around me that brings in all the skills I might not have myself. But the main traits I’m always looking for are people who are enthusiastic, entrepreneurial and creative and who
There’s always time to do what you love and try new things – Jonathan
(EmailOctopus) ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 38
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind:
10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed On Your Own Terms BOOK DESCRIPTION:
What if everything we think we know about how the world works--our ideas of love, education, spirituality, work, happiness, and love--are based on Brules (bullsh*t rules) that get passed from generation to generation and are long past their expiration date? This book teaches you to think like some of the greatest nonconformist minds of our era, to question, challenge, hack, and create new rules for YOUR life so you can define success on your own terms. The Code of the Extraordinary Mind, a New York Times bestseller, is a blueprint of laws to break us free from the shackles of an ordinary life. It makes a case that everything we know about the world is shaped by conditioning and habit. And thus, most people live their lives based on limiting rules and outdated beliefs about pretty much everything--love, work, money, parenting, sex, health, and more-which they inherit and pass on from generation to generation. But what if you could remove these outdated ideas and start anew? What would your life look like if you could forget the rules of the past, and redefine what happiness, purpose, and success mean for you?
Not Just a Book, but a Movement
Blending computational thinking, integral theory, modern spirituality, evolutionary biology, and humor, personal growth entrepreneur Vishen Lakhiani provides a revolutionary 10-point framework for understanding and enhancing the human self. You will learn about bending reality. You will learn how to apply unique models like consciousness engineering to help you learn and grow at speeds like never before. You will learn to make a dent in the universe and discover your quest. This framework is based on Lakhiani’s personal experiences, the 5 million people he’s reached through Mindvalley, and 200 hours of interviews and questions posed to incredible minds, including Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Peter Diamandis, Ken Wilber, Dean Kamen, Arianna Huffington, Michael Beckwith, and other legendary leaders. In a unique fusion of cutting-edge ideas, personal stories, irreverence, and a brilliant teaching style, Lakhiani reveals the 10 powerful laws that form a step-by-step process that you can apply to life to shed years of struggle and elevate yourself to exceptional new heights.
The 10 Laws to an Extraordinary Life This book challenges conventional ideas of relationships, goal-setting, mindfulness, happiness, and meaning. In a unique fusion of cutting-edge ideas, personal stories, and humorous irreverence, and not to mention, humor and napkin diagrams, this framework combines computational thinking with personal growth to provide a powerful framework for re-coding yourself--and replacing old, limiting models that hold you back with new, empowering beliefs and behaviors that set you on the path toward an extraordinary life. A life of more happiness and achievement than you might have dared to dream possible. Once you discover the code, you will question your limits and realize that there are none. Step into a new understanding of the world around you and your place in it, and find yourself operating at a new, extraordinary level in every way...happiness, purpose, fulfilment, and love. This Book Is a Living, Breathing Manifesto That Goes Beyond a Traditional Publication
For those who want more, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind connects to a full on immersive experience including ways for you to dive into particular chapters to unlock additional videos or training and connect with each other and the author to learn via peer-to-peer learning networks.
ABOUT AUTHOR:
Vishen is an author and entrepreneur in the ed-tech space. He is the founder and CEO of Mindvalley, an education technology company specialising in learning experience design. Mindvalley creates tech and platforms that power online academies in areas that traditional education ignores. These include mindfulness, personal growth, wellness, spirituality and more. Mindvalley employs 200 people and has 500,000 students globally. Vishen is also one of the world’s leading experts on company culture and has won numerous awards for workspace design In addition to founder of Mindvalley, he is the founder of the transformational festival A-Fest, the popular meditation app, Omvana, and the author of “The Code of the Extraordinary Mind”. Vishen quest is to help move humanity to a more holistic, integrated education system that caters for the whole being. ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 40
Tamara
Olson
THE FOUNDER OF STUDIO SIMPATICO. IT IS A CREATIVE DESIGN AND DIGITAL STUDIO BASED IN MANHATTAN. IT COLLABORATE WITH CLIENTS WHO NEED HELP CREATING EXPERIENCES THAT ENGAGE AND DELIGHT THEIR AUDIENCES.
Tell us about your professional journey so far?
My professional journey goes back to the mid-90s when I was frustrated by the limitations of pre-made Geocities templates. I stayed up searching Yahoo! until 4 am until I figured out HTML. (The next day of fifth grade was tough to get through.) 23 years later that’s still how I work: keep tackling and researching things I don’t understand online until I figure them out. Though most of my full-time jobs before starting Studio Simpatico were designfocused (UX design at Google on Ads and Classroom, an internship on the Apple. com design team, UX design for the Observer), I’ve always stayed pretty “in the weeds” and hands-on with front-end development. The biggest change for me professionally was three years ago when I walked away from an amazing job at an amazing company (Google) because I felt the entrepreneurial itch. That’s when Studio Simpatico was born.
Tell us about your company. What challenges you faced while growing your company and what you did to fix them.
We’re a small design and development shop based in Manhattan. We mostly take project-based work and are now three full-timers and four to five parttimers. We’re still growing, so I’d say the challenges are very much present tense. We didn’t take out any loans or start with any significant capital, so for us, it’s really been about slow, sustainable growth. Carving out time to grow (create a culture and positive work environment, interview people, figure out how to
GROWTH INTERVIEW delegate, train, look for new business, etc.)– while continuing to keep current clients happy and bill enough to keep the lights on– is really, really hard. Not impossible, but grueling. Finding a partner in crime in Sinan Imre (who is hard-working and talented, but also extremely good-natured) has made it much more fun.
Your Successes/failures in life.
I have plenty of both, but honestly, I don’t really believe in failure. I think success is a numbers game. The more you put yourself out there, the better chance you have of getting a big win. Successful people with long lists of accomplishments usually have long lists of failures, but the good thing is you don’t have to include those in your bio or speaker notes. People care about the awards and jobs you’ve won. They don’t list the rejections. I try to give myself pep talks to that effect, especially as a woman. I think in a lot of ways women are less encouraged to take risks.
What choices did you make in your life which made a significant difference in your life?
I made a decision a little over three years ago to leave an amazing company (Google really is as good to their employees as the press will have you believe) to take a big risk. I couldn’t be happier, even if sometimes I do need five cups of coffee to get by on three hours of sleep.
Walk us through your workday?
Every day’s a bit different, which is what I love. I whiteboard with other designers. I keep our office stocked with yummy snacks. I field emails. I code WordPress themes. I visit with old, new, and prospective clients. I think about how we can make the studio ISSUE 8 | SCALEUP | 44
GROWTH INTERVIEW space more collaborative. I stay up until 4 am researching things I don’t understand.
How do you keep yourself productive and motivated?
I picked something I love, so that makes it easier. But I do try to keep a prioritized to-do list, and at the beginning of each day map out what I plan to get done with specific pockets of time. I think it’s called the Pomodoro technique.
What do you do to keep yourself on the growth path?
I’m easily bored, so that happens pretty organically. When things start feeling easy or rote, I kick it up a notch and give myself a new challenge that feels impossible. When that starts getting easy, rinse, lather, repeat.
What tools/apps do you use for managing work and life? In life: ToDoIst, Gmail. At work: FreshBooks, Harvest, Basecamp.
Your favorite books?
It used to be A Handmaid’s Tale… but that was back in simpler times.
People who have inspired you and made a difference in your life.
I had a fantastic manager (Sam) during a good chunk of my tenure at Google. He had a great mind and was dogged about asking questions. One of the biggest problems I see with young designers when they’re designing complex enterprise software is a reluctance to ask “stupid questions” because they’re afraid of seeming dumb. You’re going to seem a lot dumber if 45 | SCALEUP | ISSUE 8
four months after you begin working on a project you present designs that don’t make any sense.
How do you hire your team? What traits do you look for while hiring?
I believe good teams happen when people with superpowers work together effectively. I look for people with superpowers who are also kind, collaborative and self-starters. That’s not a particularly original answer I know, but it works.
What advice did you get which changed your life?
A former manager told me that when you receive advice, keep in mind the source. The (usually well-intentioned) feedback giver is telling you things that helped him and that he wishes he would’ve known somewhere along the way. It’s not always going to be relevant or right for you. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it isn’t. Tara Mohr talks about that in Playing Big: don’t be so eager for feedback that you take it all. Always consider the source. I tend to be overly empathetic and a chronic mediator. This helped me keep that in check, and not forget to listen to my own gut.
What advice would you give to people looking for success and growth in personal and professional life? Set aside some serious time to figure out what you want to do and what makes you happy. Set goals, make a concrete plan, and then just keep chugging along. Be genuine and nice to people. And don’t forget to hydrate.
SCALEUP MAGAZINE HELPS PEOPLE FIND SUCCESS BY MAKING THEM 10X HEALTHY, WEALTHY & HAPPY!