In the final episode of our “Reimagining” podcast series, Sam Fromson, Co-Founder and COO at yulife, shares his COVID experiences, rescuing, recovering and ultimately reimagining his business and industry.Highlights:- We had planned to 10X our revenue in 2020, but by the end of March, we were at about a 10th of where we'd hoped we would be, but we’ve bounced back fast.- Employers have been so receptive to our offering, based on the importance of both employee and financial well being.- The emphasis on wellbeing and preventative health care by employers is here to stay.- We are experiencing some ‘survivor’s guilt’ as the business is doing so well, but we just have to be thankful.Sam Fromson is the COO of yulife, a lifestyle insurance company that unifies life insurance, wellbeing and rewards, into one simple app. Yulife’s mission is to enable people to live their best lives, by encouraging healthy daily behaviours. With the pandemic casting a spotlight onto company health and insurance policies, employers have further realised the importance of employee wellbeing, placing insurance companies like yulife, at the forefront. 

Notion - The Pain of Scale

R09 - Our product and narrative are resonating more than ever, with Sam Fromson, Co-Founder & COO @ yulife

Nik Whitfield, Founder and CEO at Panaseer, shares his COVID experiences, rescuing, recovering and ultimately reimagining his business and industry.Highlights:-We adopted a three 3 phase process: 1) Get lean; 2) Hibernate & Hustle; 3) Rebound- Our “winning from home” team has been very effective as adapting to the new working practices are not trivial- We are learning to make decisions for the best of the business with far less certainty than before, but it's working well.Nik Whitfield is a serial entrepreneur who founded Panaseer to provide a platform to unify IT and data security data, establishing total visibility and automating reporting processes. Panaseer’s goal is to give enterprise security teams and their stakeholders the insights they need to make risk-informed decisions that will keep their organisation and its data secure. Monitoring security controls during the current crisis has been a huge priority of Panaseer’s customers, putting Panaseer at the forefront. 

R08 - Entrepreneurship is about dealing with change, with Nik Whitfield, Founder & CEO @ Panaseer

Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder and Chief Tease at Triptease, shares his COVID experiences, rescuing, recovering and ultimately reimagining his business and industry, the most heavily impacted by the crisis.Highlights:- Battling uncertainty on two fronts: operating in the industry most heavily impacted by the current crisis - travel and hospitality -  and trying to raise a Series C in a recession.- Enabling hotels to continue marketing themselves in this downturn, without beefing up their third party competitors, for whom they compete with each individual booking online.- Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over againCharlie Osmond is a serial entrepreneur who founded Triptease to help hotels take back control of their distribution and increase their direct revenue. Triptease’s goal is to identify hotels’ most valuable guests then work across the entire customer journey - from acquisition to conversion - to make sure they book directly at the hotel. Triptease operates at the intersection of travel and hospitality, arguably the industries impacted the most by the current crisis; its customers have been under immense pressure putting Triptease at the forefront.

R07 - Getting a grip on the pain, with Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder & Chief Tease at Triptease

Marius discusses his vision for transforming the hiring and recruitment industry.Highlights:-‘Auf Sicht fahren’ - driving the company as fast as you can see ahead- Changing tactics and becoming more digitalised, but keeping the overall company strategy in tact- The ambition to become the leading talent platform by 2025Marius Luther is a serial entreprepreneur and the Founder and CEO of HeyJobs, the predictable hiring platform, matching people and employers with their best job at scale. Marius founded the business together with his co-founder, also called Marius, in 2016 and Notion Capital led the Series A in 2018. HeyJobs is at the intersection of employers and employees so it was fascinating to learn from his experience. 

R06 - Building a talent platform for the next generation, with Marius Luther, Founder and CEO of HeyJobs

Andreas Brenner, the founder and CEO of Avrios, shares his COVID experiences of making the tough calls to build a better future for the business: this experience entailed a massive mind-shift from "growth at all costs" to "cash runway and certainty is King.” We are now far more focused and as a result we've become tremendously more efficient.Highlights:- I took the philosophical decision early on to act like a more conservative CEO, to protect the long term survival of the business.- We had to build a plan that had sufficient room for mistakes and uncertainty.-Now it’s all about focus and now I recognise that being more focused isn’t just a factor to survive, but potentially a factor for us to win even bigger as we come out of this.-What has definitely happened is that the whole market has aligned in the short term around priorities of cost reduction or efficiency.-But long term there are some very important trends that will be accelerated.Andreas Brenner is the founder of Avrios, the fleet management and automation platform. Andreas founded the business in 2015 and Notion Capital led the Series A in 2017. 

R05 - Making the tough calls, building a better future, with Andreas Brenner, Founder and CEO of Avrios

Hannah Dawson, Founder and CEO of Futrli, shares her COVID experiences, rescuing her business and furthering her company’s mission to give small businesses the capability and tools to survive the recession and transform their businesses for the better.Highlights:Identifying key trigger points, to preserve as much cash in the bank as possible for our small business community. Emphasising a customers first, product second approach. Making decisions vs having choices: Empowering our small businesses with the information to understand the choices available to them.Hannah is a serial entrepreneur who founded Futrli to address the endemic lack of advanced financial forecasting software for small businesses. Futrli’s goal is to ultimately reduce the systemic failure rates in small companies and empower them with more and better choices regarding their cash flows and their businesses as a whole. Futrli serves thousands of small businesses, all of whom have been affected by the current crisis, putting Futrli on the front line. 

R04 - Overcoming the symptoms of the recession, with Hannah Dawson, CEO, Futrli

Mads is the CEO of Dixa, and as a customer services platform it was only natural for them to double down on helping customers work through these challenging times.Highlights:- Finding the right balance of investment in innovation to delight our customers and capital efficient growth is our priority.- We are still growing very fast, but the business is healthier in many ways.- It is no longer acceptable - if it ever was - to grow fast despite the costs and the consequences.Mads Fosselius is the CEO of Dixa, a customer service platform which helps brands build stronger relationships with their customers to deliver a better experience, by unifying all the customer communication channels and data into one platform. Many of their customers have seen a massive increase in customer traffic and, at the same time, all of their customer’s customer services people are working remotely. This combination puts Dixa’s customers under a lot of stress.

R03 - Building a healthier business, with Mads Fosselius, CEO, Dixa

COVID is leading to a rapidly accelerated change in our business, our customers and our industry as a whole.Highlights:- The idea of a return to normal is a false and damaging reality.- Adopting a survivor’s winning mentality.- Create psychological safety for your teams and your customers.- Some fitness businesses have seen the digital light and will never go back, some can’t wait to cancel their zoom account and get back in the studio and many more will be a blend of the two.- The biggest change is the shift towards fitness on the customers terms.Conor O’Loughlin, founder and CEO of Glofox, shares his COVID experiences, rescuing, recovering and ultimately reimagining his business and industry. Conor is a professional rugby player, turned tech entrepreneur.

R02 - Blazing a trail for the fitness industry, with Conor O’Loughlin, CEO, Glofox

Richard discusses his internal struggles with the changes he had to make, but also why Mews and the Hotel Industry will withstand and indeed benefit from the COVID shock to the system.Highlights:- The importance of acting fast and acting radically, but with decency- Why tech founders can no longer have the luxury of just raising money and growing fast. They must pay attention to the inefficiencies in the business.- Moving to a simpler organisation that could withstand the shock.- Moving from sales led growth to customer-focused product led growth.- The importance of constantly making decisions and moving fast.Richard Valtr is the founder of Mews, now one of the world’s leading hotel property management systems providers, and is a hotelier turned tech founder.

R01 - A shock to the system, with Richard Valtr, Founder, Mews

Jennifer describes why category design is so important in our crowded technology markets and why category design goes hand in hand with company strategy.Highlights:- The art of category design is executive alignment.- Category designers are driving change, and their number one job is to get everyone on the same page.- Why Salesforce is probably the greatest example of category design in enterprise software.Jennifer Johnson is a three times CMO and enterprise software category builder. Now CMO of Tenable, JJ is also Category Design Evangelist at Play Bigger. Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/carve-out-your-place-in-the-world-with-category-design/

P408 - Carve out your place in the world with category design, says Jennifer Johnson, CMO, Tenable and Category Design Evangelist with Play Bigger

Pavla explains the importance of investing time in data quality, systems and reporting to give everyone in the business the information they need to make better decisions.Highlights:- Invest in data, finance systems and automation as early as possible.- Managing cash in hypergrowth is tough - gather all your incoming and outgoing cash flows in one place and get as near real-time as possible.- Empower your business with insights on the metrics and measures that matter most to them.Pavla Munzarova is VP Finance, at Mews.  Mews is a Prague based Hotel Property Management System with customers in more than 50 countries.Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/nailing-saas-metrics-in-hyper-growth/

P407 - Nailing SaaS metrics in hyper-growth, with Pavla Munzarova, VP Finance, Mews

Exploring the profound importance of pricing and monetisation strategies for SaaS success.Highlights:- Why failing to invest time and effort in pricing is a wasted opportunity.- Getting the fundamentals right: pricing, packaging, positioning, understanding who your buyers are, and the unit of measurement that grows with your buyer.- Understanding willingness to pay and perceived value.- International pricing localisation is one of the quickest and most powerful pricing strategies.Peter Zotto is General Manager and Co Founder of ProfitWell.Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/pricing-the-trickiest-of-subjects-with-peter-zotto/

P406 - Pricing, the trickiest of subjects, with Peter Zotto

The best tech companies invest in real product leaders and empower their teams to solve strategic problems.Highlights:- Don’t give product teams a list of features to build, give them a set of problems to solve and business results to be measured against.- The best product companies invest in real leaders for product, design and engineering; proactive people leaders and coaches.- The best product companies empower their product teams.Marty Cagan has held executive positions at eBay, Netscape and HP, and a number of fortune 500 companies. He's the author of the often quoted and much recommended, Inspired, how to create tech products customers love. Marty is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group.Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/what-makes-a-good-product-company-with-marty-cagan/

P405 - What makes a good product company, with Marty Cagan, Author and Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group

Melissa shares her thoughts on the importance of professionalism, setting expectations and beating them and why you should never win quietly. Because the sum of every single small success will be huge successes long term.Highlights:- As a startup grows the path to success starts with professionalism.- Success = setting expectations + delivering on them- Introducing the role of the Chief Customer OfficerAs startups grow, we see an interesting layering of capability building from each stage to the next. As they move from founder led sales to team sales, as they find repeatability, as they test and validate different models and sales motions.  Melissa Di Donato is the CEO of SUSE, and Executive in Residence at Notion Capital.Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/winning-loudly-with-melissa-di-donato/

P404 - Winning loudly, with Melissa Di Donato, CEO, SUSE

Yvonne describes her experience in building high performing teams, hiring at scale and for culture and managing remote teams.Highlights:- When scaling teams, you have to have a detailed plan, how to interview, how to make hiring decisions, how to onboard, but you have to accept that you will sacrifice some short term productivity as these processes can be time consuming.- You must hire for culture and behaviours, not just for your benefit but also for the candidate- With global and remote teams you must appreciate the different communication styles that predominate around the world.Yvonne Agyei is the Chief People Officer at Gocardless. She was formerly the Chief People Officer of booking .com. Prior to that she spent 12 years at Google, latterly as the VP of global people operations. Yvonne has a Bachelor's in Psychology from Stanford, and a Master's in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern.  Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/building-high-performing-teams-with-yvonne-agyei/

P403 - Building high performing teams, with Yvonne Agyei, Chief People Officer, Gocardless

Notion creates the conditions for extraordinary success, and invests across Europe in enterprise technology founders. We offer guidance and resources to our portfolio and the wider enterprise tech ecosystem on their start up, grow up, scale up journeys. Hosted by Stephen Millard and Paul Papadimitriou.

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Notion - The Pain of Scale

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