00:04um welcome back to week
00:07seven of decode um and today's topic is
00:12team building and company culture uh
00:15and please just type in the chat or let
00:19if you guys can't really hear me
00:22um all right so as usual i will go over
00:25logistics and then uh
00:27time for the speaker and then a quick q
00:30and a session at the end
00:32uh again uh please turn on your camera
00:36um and the the assignments and project
00:39assignments are due this sunday
00:41and then uh as usual will give you guys
00:44the quiz code uh at the end of my part
00:46and i also emailed dksv gmail for
00:49for any questions all right starting
00:53um so let's define what is culture
00:58basically when done right it's the thing
01:01that holds the employees
01:02accountable and tells them how to behave
01:05explicit instructions
01:10and with that here's a quote from brian
01:13um you know simply put the stronger the
01:16culture the less corporate process the
01:19uh and the when the culture is strong
01:23uh everyone to do the right thing so
01:26the sense of trust uh
01:31within the company um
01:35and why is go to important uh just look
01:38um 65 percent of the startups
01:41fell because the the uh two two or three
01:45co-founders got into
01:46uh argument and never figured it out and
01:49then in comparison the us divorce rates
01:5450 so that shows you how important
01:57and how important um is to align your
02:01uh within the company so here are a few
02:04examples from the bigger firms
02:08the first one is netflix um they have
02:11this thing called keeper test
02:13i think it's a really good um way for
02:17managers to evaluate whether they should
02:21or fire white employees um
02:25i'll just read it uh which one
02:28which of my people if they told me they
02:31leaving for a similar job at a peer
02:34company would i find hard to keep at
02:38i just think that's a really cool
02:39mentality uh within the firm
02:43uh second example would be google google
02:46you know known for its snacks bar and
02:50you know game rooms and you know puppies
02:53uh and the reason for that is that um
02:57google strives to um
03:00to uh the the the people that
03:04google is looking for is are creative
03:07and for for people to be creative you
03:10got to be in a relaxed
03:11environment right um so so they don't
03:14they don't really enforce any uh strict
03:17rules within the company
03:19so that's another type of culture and
03:23in alibaba's case they have their
03:26hr department has this veto power
03:30meaning that whether regardless how
03:32strong the applicant is
03:34um the hr department will have the final
03:37to whether um this applicant fit into
03:42and with that they have 100 of the power
03:45reject an applicant even if they're
03:48um you know the best programmer in the
03:52um so with that um here is a
04:00for you to to cultivate this culture
04:03uh number one is to be proud of what
04:06um if you're not even proud of the the
04:10solving uh you might as well might be
04:13just to work for google or some bigger
04:16um because you got to be proud of what
04:20number two is to convince others with
04:23and when we talk about visions um
04:27think about elon musk uh when he says
04:30conquer march like it's it's almost
04:34super challenging but when he says that
04:36you feel like oh wow
04:38uh you feel empowered to to join his
04:42to actually conquer mars um number three
04:45is to come up with a set of core values
04:47and be the model within the company uh
04:51um you know be creative be nice
04:54or something like that but uh you gotta
04:58a list of core values and be specific as
05:01as specific as possible
05:03and really um represent the
05:06the company uh yourself i represent the
05:11and number four um once you come up with
05:14list you might want to check to see
05:17if at least some of the core values are
05:21on the customers um so so take
05:25on facebook as a as an example they have
05:28uh move fast and break things um this is
05:32internal like it it is inwardly um
05:38the the this i guess this saying is
05:42uh in internal stuff um so so let's say
05:45if you're an engineer
05:47and uh when you encounter a problem you
05:50move fast and break things right and
05:55and uh with that uh we might not be
05:59just if you think about from think about
06:01it from that perspective you might not
06:04when you hear about the antitrust issues
06:08with facebook because because uh they
06:11they are cultivating this culture of
06:15uh without really considering um
06:19what what effect you might have on other
06:22and on the other hand take google i'm
06:26both companies they obviously have their
06:30from a culture's perspective um google
06:32has this saying of don't be evil
06:35and um think about it when when
06:39as part of google when you encounter a
06:42you will think about don't be evil and
06:45others feelings into consideration so so
06:48that's just a comparison of
06:50two type of um two kinds of culture
06:55uh and number five moving on the list uh
06:58you really need to think about what
07:00diversity means to you and this can be
07:02gender race or diversity of thoughts
07:06um because initially when your early
07:09early stage startup you just
07:10you know you hire your friends you hire
07:12your friends friends
07:14and and after a while you will actually
07:17you will get a monoculture type of
07:19environment and as a startup you don't
07:22really want that because
07:23the more diverse you are the more
07:25creative you are um in terms of
07:28solving problems and stuff um moving on
07:32uh you want to have a hiring process in
07:35as early as possible to make sure that
07:38uh you have this process to hire the
07:42as early as possible and this hiring
07:45it's work in progress right you can you
07:49iterating it over time but you got to
07:52um you have this standard of um
07:55whether one should be hired or not
07:59um so that's at the end of my part and
08:02the critical for this week is go bears
08:04without space uh no no uppercase
08:08um and without further ado uh
08:12i'll welcome our speaker of tonight
08:16um uh sorry for the pronunciation again
08:20uh i'll try jair uh vacosa
08:28cto and co-founder at flipper
08:32and the founder at carter brazil um
08:35that's welcome yeah thank you
08:38thank you for have for having me here
08:40and it's a pleasure um
08:42i was telling thomas that i i didn't
08:46a uh actual presentation
08:49it's more like talking about my
08:52and the things that um you know drove me
08:55during all those years um so what i've
08:59so just just a quick um explanation of
09:02flibber is and what card bay is if you
09:05silicon valley you probably heard about
09:07carta or if you have
09:09ever done um some kind of like
09:12internship in one of those
09:14startups you have heard about carter
09:16carter is a company that
09:17helped a lot of the all the startups in
09:20the silicon valley to manage their cap
09:22table which is basically like when they
09:24investments they have to manage the
09:26stakeholders how much
09:28ownership they have given to employees
09:30and these kind of things that's what
09:34while flipper is is more focused on the
09:37online retailing industry
09:39so what we do at flipper we we are
09:42disrupting the supply chain
09:43industry for online retailing connecting
09:47and inventory and expediting this
09:51of getting goods at the right place um
09:55so so what i prepared here is it's
09:59some simple principles that i've done
10:02uh through my career and i've learned
10:05along the way i want to start with
10:07culture and i really like thomas yours
10:10light you did a really good job at it
10:12um and like collecting and
10:15gathering a lot of those informations um
10:19so when i say i am founder of carter
10:22brazil when i joined carda
10:24carter had um around like 38 employees
10:27um i was actually distinctly 38 37.
10:30um and and i was in brazil i'm brazilian
10:34and i was living there and i was
10:36actually running a small consulting
10:39uh when the er the ceo
10:42actually called me and then said that he
10:45wanted to open a company brazil
10:47um his reason was interesting and that
10:49actually was the first
10:51contact of the silicon valley in the
10:53culture uh the culture in the silicon
10:57he wanted to bring a lot more diversity
11:00so to your point thomas that makes a lot
11:02he wanted to bring more diversity hiring
11:06another country he also wanted to
11:09hire them faster than he had hired in
11:13just because like it's so it's a very
11:17um but the problem becomes how do you
11:21roll out your culture that you are
11:24in one particular country um onto
11:28another country with a
11:29totally different culture with something
11:32you know something that are local to
11:34how do you do that and those are some of
11:37the principles that i've learned
11:38along the way that actually are really
11:40interesting uh and i i
11:42apply that to flavor today i think the
11:46carter did really well and we are doing
11:48the same thing at flipper is
11:50is like you said thomas defining really
11:54but what i want to tell you here is what
11:57a core value means right like i think a
11:59lot of people think about
12:01oh be honest as a core value or
12:04um you know like simple things that
12:11on your uh life as a human being right
12:15be honest is obvious obviously something
12:18that you should do anyways
12:20um so i wanted to find corvallis is
12:25core values actually means things that
12:28team or employees to take better
12:32um so when you think about this
12:35be honest is very it is not a really
12:39uh value just because it doesn't help
12:41you to take a decision regards your work
12:44right like if you are not being honest
12:47really like doing uh um really good for
12:52but when you think about
12:55how do i make a decision whether
12:58with a shortcut or tech
13:01project with like the right right
13:05right so there are companies that have
13:07on their core values things like
13:09don't take shortcuts at all you know so
13:13that means for the engineering team that
13:15they you'd actually do the things
13:17right at the first time and spend more
13:21building that thing rather than just
13:23like taking shortcuts
13:24and breaking things like facebook does
13:26and that's actually another
13:27good thing and not a good example from
13:30facebook says break things uh fast
13:34right like move fast and break things
13:37and that's actually a really good core
13:38value because it helps you to take a
13:40like if you are going to build something
13:42and you don't know if that
13:44that's that's something that's gonna
13:45work or if that's gonna break
13:47something that is currently working like
13:50you can use that core value
13:52and then say you know what let's build
13:54it let's make it happen
13:56because that's part of our um
13:59nature as a company um
14:03another really good uh core value that i
14:05really liked uh uh from carta is
14:07progress not activity and that's really
14:13managers to think about what they're
14:15doing right so when you look back
14:17at your backlog or all the things that
14:20your team have done in the last
14:21two weeks or a month if you are
14:25seeing things like a lot of things but
14:27not much progress you're probably
14:29having a lot of activity and not really
14:33and when you're not having progress like
14:37basically are are the main driver
14:41for culture and i'm going to talk about
14:43that a little bit later
14:44but if you're not going if you're not
14:46getting any progress there
14:49most likely the moral of your team is
14:52the culture is going to be really poor
14:54and people will start to blame each
14:56right so making sure that you're
14:59always making progress rather than like
15:02doing a lot of things
15:03it's actually really important and the
15:04last one that i really like also from
15:07uh do things that don't scale right for
15:10engineering is really good
15:12because often you'll get engineers
15:15thinking about like oh
15:17you know like this this has to be really
15:19scalable we're gonna have
15:20one million requests are you gonna have
15:23really like per second are you sure
15:26most likely not in the first month or
15:30right so doing things that don't scale
15:32first make sure that you will
15:34always optimize for having something
15:37that actually adds value
15:39instead of having something that is
15:43up front but it might be the wrong thing
15:45so you just spend a lot of time actually
15:47doing something that's it's on the wrong
15:52oh by the way um feel free to reach to
15:56ask any question you can interrupt me at
15:59any time i don't care
16:00uh so if you want to know anything about
16:03like what i'm telling you
16:04please just interrupt me um
16:08cool so that is the first thing we're
16:12your core values but define core values
16:14that actually help people to make
16:21that also is something we are following
16:24uh at fliber carter also does that
16:27really well and the most
16:29stunning companies that you know also do
16:31that really well amazon's a good example
16:33which is put your customer or put your
16:37right what that means basically is like
16:40everything that you do
16:41literally everything you do in the
16:45to serve a particular client
16:48whether this is a company or another
16:52whether this is like a end consumer at
16:56you will serve somebody right um
16:59even if you're serving a company there's
17:01a person behind that that
17:03brand that you are serving and helping
17:06so putting your customer at first is
17:10putting human beings for right like how
17:13interact with your product how they use
17:15your products how they interact with
17:18and and one of the things that we are
17:21um i i am particularly really proud of
17:24uh what we've created at carter
17:28is the customer success team that that
17:32that team is remarkable and a lot of
17:36reach out to us like sending compliments
17:39for how helpful they are how you know
17:43push things further further they are how
17:47uh help you know with every single thing
17:50even if there is not their job and
17:52that's a really good example
17:54of i forgot actually where's the company
17:57but the ceo of that company called their
18:01and asked for a pizza but they actually
18:05so they called asking for a pizza and
18:08and and the the person that was on the
18:12another end of the line said oh so sir
18:15i we don't sell pizzas but i have here
18:19of uh uh pizza restaurants around you
18:27a pizza for addre like and then that's
18:29that's kind of the level
18:31of the power that a core value like this
18:35uh can have right like and that actually
18:38makes all the difference think about
18:40other companies that you love
18:42and other companies that you had a
18:43really good relationship or
18:45or experience with all of them put
18:48clients at first and that is the type of
18:50culture that actually drives
18:52everything um in inside of those
18:56and that's the same thing for carter
18:57it's the same thing for flipper
18:58everything we do we always
19:00think with the customer uh
19:03uh you know in the first place
19:10um promote leadership by example
19:14and i think thomas you mentioned that as
19:17uh on your presentation um but
19:21there are basically you know
19:24uh seven principles i don't know if i'm
19:27gonna remember all of them here but
19:28seven principles of leadership that
19:30actually makes all the difference when
19:31when you are trying to build a culture
19:35things like be on time all the time as a
19:39right like that's gonna drive your team
19:43uh um uh you know on time um
19:47you know hold yourself accountable when
19:50when you com you are committed to
19:52something and you're
19:53and you don't deliver that you know hold
19:56yourself accountable
19:57that's going to put your team as well
20:00into a position that they will hold
20:01themselves accountable
20:02because you are the example right the
20:06is make sure that you celebrate
20:10you know the the uh accomplishments
20:13of your team and therefore your team
20:16enjoy the moments uh that are
20:20really good right the moments that they
20:22can ship a new product the moments that
20:25uh um have some kind of uh
20:28rewarding coming from leadership or
20:32so when you do those type of things you
20:35are creating a type of environment that
20:38uh enjoy what they're doing right
20:41and i don't know if i'm gonna remember
20:43all the the leadership principles but i
20:46uh here if you if you guys uh ask i
20:50around here um all right so
20:53promote leadership by example right make
20:56uh your leadership team and yourself as
20:58a leader if you desire to be so
21:02are doing things uh always like thinking
21:05are the example what you do your team
21:09um this is one thing that i really like
21:13this you know cultures that have this
21:16for me they are the best in terms of uh
21:20innovation which is curiosity
21:23fostering curiosity um
21:28i've seen you know a lot of really good
21:32there are really good building things
21:36but they are not very good at like
21:39new ways of doing the thing the same
21:42more efficiently or with a very
21:46better performance or things like that
21:48they just like get things done
21:50and you know move on um
21:54curiosity is also the thing that will
22:01of your company right so if you
22:04foster the curiosity uh what we have in
22:08culture is that people assembling small
22:12in order to get something done or
22:15in order to figure it out to research
22:17about something and then figure out a
22:19better way of doing things
22:21um ask like have having this sense of
22:24asking the whys behind something
22:28is actually the most important thing for
22:31innovative companies and i can give you
22:35how you know i particularly
22:39like to apply that when i'm hiring
22:42um the thing that i ask usually the most
22:46to candidates is the whys behind each
22:50movement that they make in their resume
22:52right so if they moved from
22:54company a to company b why
22:57what what what was the thing that you
22:58were looking for which kind of
23:00learnings were you looking for um
23:04and that's a you know a good example for
23:05you whenever you were
23:07in an interview think about that right
23:10like if you're moving from one company
23:12to another what are you looking for are
23:13you just moving that because of
23:15excuse me the better money that you're
23:17getting there or are you moving because
23:19of the mission of that company or are
23:21you moving just because you have a
23:23really bad manager and they don't like
23:26so if you move from one place to
23:30the other and you have the sense of
23:32curiosity you probably have a really
23:35behind your movements and that's what i
23:37look for when i am a man
23:39when you know i'm interviewing people
23:46the other thing that i i really
23:48appreciate is when you have a company
23:50open communication google is a
23:54really good example of that at google
23:57you will never be able to to
24:00talk you know bad things about your
24:03colleague to your manager
24:05without receiving a reply email with
24:09you know cc on that email and then like
24:12for you both to figure it out and i
24:16that is a really interesting environment
24:19because ultimately you guys are a team
24:22right like you are working together
24:23towards a goal and if you don't like
24:26each other if there's something you
24:29between you the two of you right like
24:31you need to have some time to discuss
24:34and this type of culture helps a lot
24:37like the this type of talk that happens
24:40right like people talking bad things
24:44when you have this type of uh principle
24:48that thing never happens right and
24:51that is really really good because like
24:54most of the toxic companies or the toxic
24:58cultures have this kind of behaviors
25:02talking against like bad things about
25:05on the corridors aisles of the company
25:09like on through emails that only like
25:12are on the thread like that is how how
25:16you know suddenly you just just find
25:19yourself in a place where you don't
25:21you can trust anyone and trust like
25:25it's one of the most important assets
25:33just a quick recap make sure that you
25:37values and make sure that those values
25:40are always helping people to make
25:44put clients first and that will
25:48just create a company that is you know
25:51with making clients uh number one
25:55promote leadership by example so make
25:58your leaders and managers are also
26:01following whatever values
26:02you have defined for your company foster
26:06right like make sure that you you hire
26:09people they are always
26:10constantly asking the whys
26:14adopt open communication like avoid
26:17back uh uh talking on your back like
26:21whenever somebody talks about somebody
26:24like hey get both together in a room
26:27and then make sure that they they
26:29resolve the differences
26:32um the next one is um
26:35eliminate the crutches
26:39and what that means basically is like
26:42that that was a lesson that i learned
26:47what happens is that most of the times
26:51if you are asked why you could not get
26:5699 of the times you have an excuse
26:59right 99 of the times you you have
27:02no i couldn't get this done just because
27:06called me and i could slip in and then
27:09i couldn't wake up earlier and that
27:10what's happened like
27:12if you asking please if you ask people
27:15most of the times the reason why they
27:18could not get something done
27:20was never like is never themselves it's
27:23something else that happened and that
27:26happens often with teams
27:28uh and companies like usually there's
27:31something that people complain a lot
27:34all the time all the time and
27:37as leaders your role is actually to
27:41eliminate that thing
27:43because once you eliminate that your
27:46no excuses and they will have to execute
27:49or they will have to forget about that
27:51thing and then just like figure out
27:53to figure out a better way of doing
27:55things the example i can give you
28:00we we when i joined uh um
28:04because i started advising and helped to
28:06fund the company but i joined
28:08uh a little later as a full-time cto
28:12um there was this like old system
28:15that everybody was complaining about but
28:18we already had customers using it
28:20so we had customers using that engineers
28:23were complaining about and saying that
28:25get things done faster just because the
28:27system was there and and
28:31and like it was really hard to maintain
28:34uh to expand that thing uh so at some
28:37point i just said you know what like
28:39that's enough let's kill that thing and
28:42from from scratch so we literally like
28:45sent messages to our customers saying
28:47hey i'm sorry you're gonna be without
28:50a month uh a month and a half
28:53most likely and and we're gonna do
28:56everything manually so we had literally
29:00six people generating spreadsheets
29:03making calculations by hand like and
29:05sending to our customers while we were
29:08with the engineering team rebuilding the
29:10whole thing from scratch
29:12um that was very very painful
29:15but that was the only way for us you
29:18know to remove that thing that was like
29:20we were just uh you know
29:23on top of that thing say hey this is the
29:26reason why this is the reason why
29:28eliminate the reason there's no there's
29:31like you have to get things done um that
29:34was painful but but we did that
29:36eventually earlier this year and that
29:38was the best thing that we have done
29:39ever and i will tell you what we are
29:42about to do the same thing again
29:44so um that's just like how i really
29:48really believe in that thing um
29:51and lastly uh embrace diversity
29:56um so i like the way that you put that
29:59thomas because a lot of people think
30:01that diversity is just like uh athen
30:05ethnic things or gender
30:08you know i think about diversity as like
30:11this different backgrounds that just
30:14bring different thoughts
30:16to your company um so at flipper for
30:19example we have engineers in brazil
30:22in argentina we have engineers in
30:26amsterdam we have people in here in the
30:34they are all remote and uh and it's
30:38interesting how this different
30:41brings a lot of innovation and
30:44what i the other thing is the background
30:49wise right like yes in this case we
30:52brought a lot of people from different
30:53countries but think about also different
30:55industries so flipper has to do you know
30:58does a lot of things regarding supply
31:01online retailing zero engineers
31:05have come from that industry no
31:08not even the product manager that we
31:10hired came from that industry and
31:12the reason why is just because we want
31:14people that have like
31:15completely different mindsets totally
31:20than um than you know the industry
31:24has um it has been really really good
31:27because what happens is that we have the
31:30you know used to be a seller uh at
31:34we have myself that has some logistics
31:37uh and then we have those people all the
31:40why we have to do things in that way and
31:43then the answer often is well because
31:46it's the way that the market does and
31:47then and then the the question
31:49comes back saying what why like why
31:52follow that like this is just it's
31:56right let's just do things in this way
31:58like this is a lot more efficient
31:59and that's how innovation happens it's
32:03you have people that are from different
32:05backgrounds different
32:06industry just like disrupting things and
32:09making sure that those things
32:11uh that was you know before done in a
32:16now it's done in a much better way uh in
32:19more efficient way so for
32:23culture those are the seven things uh
32:27i want to do a quick break here and then
32:28see if anyone has any questions around
32:32and um you know want me to
32:36to to go in details about any example
32:38that i have given here
32:41um there is a question of
32:44um asking how do you keep
32:48how do you make sure that culture uh
32:52like people are are aligned with the
32:54same culture when when
32:56the team is like remote or are aware of
33:01yeah um you know like now now we have
33:05a full remote team at flavor and
33:08i built the brazilian branch for carter
33:12um having like around 52 employees at
33:17uh and and the headquarters was here uh
33:19in the united states
33:20actually there in the silicon valley um
33:24there's we have tried a lot of things
33:27um we have tried moving people
33:31like sending people across offices all
33:35so uh at cardo you'd have people
33:38like constantly every two weeks we'd
33:40have people from the united states in
33:42and people from brazil in the united
33:45just to kind of like foster this
33:49and make sure that people are exchanging
33:52knowledge and culture but i think
33:55what actually works the most is are two
33:59number one is constant communication
34:02communicate if you have a team that
34:06you gotta make the extra effort on
34:10so it's not just about like having
34:13whatever task management system you use
34:16or send notes it's actually like having
34:20task management send notes sending me
34:22and possibly like even calling the
34:24say hey did you get my memo like it's
34:27something about that right like it's
34:28it's actually uh embracing that
34:32you need to communicate a lot more than
34:35the regular companies just because you
34:37have now people abroad
34:39um and the other the second thing is
34:42don't uh give up on on your
34:46uh values so a good example about this
34:50carter have a meeting called uh
34:54show and tell which is a really nice
34:56meeting it happens every
34:58i think now happens uh once a week and
35:01the idea the initial idea in the early
35:04thing was for everybody that anyone in
35:06the company could just
35:07raise problems issues and they would
35:09have the entire company to help them
35:11um they could also like just show
35:13whatever work they were working on
35:16and and things that um they they were
35:18really excited about
35:19or you know show some tip ideas that
35:22other people could follow
35:25um but that com that meeting
35:28it was a ceo show like it's it's him
35:31actually you know going over each one of
35:33the topics talk to employees
35:36um and then at some point um
35:39you the united states had a holiday
35:43and the brazilian office was about to
35:45like not have the meeting
35:47they said no like we're gonna make the
35:49meeting like i'm gonna
35:50i'm gonna run the show but we're gonna
35:52have the meeting like it's culture
35:54you know like it's the relentless uh
35:58keep things going no matter what and and
36:01that was what we did like
36:02when when things were um like we had
36:06holidays we had things like that that
36:07were a little different
36:09we you keep things going as
36:12usual and that is what makes people
36:16think all right there is a culture here
36:17like this this is what we do this is who
36:20we are um and and that's why we
36:24do those things you just need to
36:25constantly repeat no matter what
36:27and no matter you know
36:31who who is the owner of you know
36:34process and such so just just follow
36:39awesome that there's another question
36:41asking um so the student used to work
36:44with his friends and colleagues from his
36:48and a little bit he's a little bit
36:50afraid to reach out to others
36:52so what advice do you have um to try to
36:56find the people that are
36:57outside of your social social circle but
37:01um culture and core value
37:05yeah that's a really good one um there
37:08main things i really advise uh you to do
37:11like the number one is
37:13um figure out what can you
37:16offer first right so
37:20figure out what you can offer before you
37:23so before you take right like so if you
37:27if you want to get get closer to those
37:30reach out to them and then like learn
37:34like figure out what can you where can
37:37how can you help them how can you teach
37:39them or or how can you
37:41uh somehow add value to them first
37:45and then certainly like
37:48getting closer to them would be a lot
37:52find things that are com that are in
37:53common right like things that
37:55you like that they like that uh um
37:58it could be a topic a subject of some
38:01conversation and then just like make it
38:03um i have a good a good example about
38:11there is a cto the cto of jive by the
38:14maybe you can bring him here he's a
38:18uh his name is sam and
38:21and sam reached out to me
38:25because he he wanted to understand a
38:28little bit more about
38:30how i open the office of brazil because
38:33he was thinking about having a team
38:35abroad and etc um and and the way
38:38that i never forget like the way that he
38:40reached out to me was like
38:42through a common friend and that friend
38:46you know like you both like jungle a lot
38:49django is the framework for python you
38:51both like django a lot i thought i think
38:53you both should talk
38:55about django and that was the common
38:57thing that we that he found that i liked
39:01and that became the topic of a cafe that
39:04and at the end of the cafe he started to
39:07ask me questions about like how
39:09how i opened the office and et cetera
39:10like even we became friends now we are
39:13uh but it's really interesting how how
39:16had you know that works if you find
39:19those things that are
39:20common um that that's also helpful so
39:24basically like those two ways uh uh are
39:31awesome that was all the questions for
39:36all right so let's move forward um
39:39i will talk about team building now i
39:42also have like seven
39:43items for team building um
39:46that i've learned along the way so
39:50the the challenge with team building
39:54is you know i am a i'm a tech guy like
39:58you know my i have a technical
39:59background and i always
40:01always say that the problem with hiring
40:04you know like and it's the problem with
40:07it's also people and it's
40:11literally the the the funny thing about
40:14people is also the solution right like
40:17so we are part of the
40:18problem and part of the solution at the
40:21um and if if you bring
40:25someone in that's really good
40:28technically excuse me but
40:31it's not very much aligned with the way
40:38the only reason why you'd bring someone
40:42in is because you want to disrupt
40:45the way that you are operating right so
40:48like you know just just take a quick uh
40:52note about culture and team building the
40:55only way for you to change
40:56there are only two ways for you to
40:58change a culture of a company
41:00number one is hiring people with the new
41:02mindset that you want
41:04but hiring them at a level that is
41:07bigger than the people that we already
41:10have so either you hire more people
41:12than what you have or people that have a
41:16uh and they can bring in another you
41:19know a fresh air a new culture
41:21or you have to let the other people go
41:25and then bring new people to the comfort
41:26so either way you have to hire
41:28uh and that's actually my point um it's
41:35hard to to change culture
41:40without without having high in the
41:44um so when you think about
41:48hiring i always optimize for
41:51the culture that i want for my teams
41:55um so if i have a culture that is
41:58i would never hire someone that's really
42:01a plus player but has not a good feel
42:06but if the culture is not going well
42:10you know i would hire someone that's
42:13to my team just to create the shock and
42:17what happens and then make sure that
42:20this diversity now creates something new
42:24it's not even the culture that i had or
42:27the new culture that this person is
42:28bringing in is something better
42:30like it's something that's a mix of both
42:33and of course like coach along the way
42:36um so when you are when you when you
42:39are hiring or bringing people in to
42:43create a successful team think about
42:46uh uh operation or or behavior you have
42:50and what you want to change if you want
42:53to change or what you want to continue
42:55doing then bring people that are aligned
42:57with that so that's the first
42:59first thing about the team beauty of
43:02the second thing is a players like a
43:05players i think that's
43:07obvious but let me tell you a story
43:10um i had an engineer that was he he
43:15as an a player uh let's put that away
43:18um and and he was he was
43:21always like all the time complaining
43:25the engineers that he had to work with
43:27and then saying that those engineers are
43:28not good like we need to hire senior
43:30engineers they are not senior engineers
43:32and blah blah and all these kind of
43:34things is that okay man um
43:36what what do you mean you know what do
43:40so just let them go and fight find new
43:43okay so let's let's do differently then
43:46help me to find the people that are at
43:49that are at your level
43:51and let's make the difference together
43:55it took a year and a half and we didn't
44:00and i came back to him said why is that
44:03oh we didn't we didn't find anyone
44:05that's good enough oh
44:06really like the problem is that
44:10his perception of the other
44:13on the other people was that
44:17they whatever mistake that they made
44:21they would be not worthy to to work with
44:25and i said like you you sh you have a
44:30you are you are an a player um i
44:34but you've got to also see how how the
44:37other people are contributing
44:40and my my last the lesson that i learned
44:43is that you it's not just about having a
44:47players in your team but it's also about
44:49like creating this sense of trust
44:51that everybody you know like it doesn't
44:55uh um whether you like the way that that
44:59person actually works or not
45:01all it matters is that can you trust
45:02that this person will get the job done
45:04at the level that the whole team
45:07is satisfied with um
45:12the problem though is when you bring
45:15it's not aligned with that like when you
45:18bring someone that is
45:19that lacks some particular
45:23uh knowledge that will break this
45:26this chain of trust among the team
45:29um the other example i have is that at
45:32some point i had a team that had a
45:34front-end engineer that was really
45:36junior while the entire team
45:40was a senior and we had actually
45:43two junior end engineers and three
45:46senior engineers on the back end so the
45:49everything completed really fast and in
45:51a really good fashion but the front end
45:54always delay the projects and
45:57and that just creates friction just
45:59creates friction all the time
46:01um so eventually like what i had to do
46:05was actually to move those two engine to
46:07those student engineers to other teams
46:09where they'd have like more senior
46:11people to coach them
46:12and and hire senior engineers that would
46:16level at this uh of that team so
46:20that that is my point here like yes
46:23a players like to play with a players so
46:27aware of that but at the same time if
46:32no one will actually even realize
46:34whether they are eight players or not as
46:36as long as you are getting results
46:38as long as you are getting things done
46:40um i think that should be fine
46:44um and the third topic
46:47is trust is a blessing protect it
46:51at all costs like there's
46:54nothing else there's nothing else better
46:57than having a team that trusts each
47:00um and and one of the things that i say
47:04is people that go through the mud
47:09they tend to create bones or like they
47:11tend to create better relationships
47:13um and they they tend to respect each
47:16other and that actually if you
47:18if you see how army uh
47:21does that like how people
47:24if you talk about people that have been
47:28you know uh have been deployed or or
47:31have gone through like some really
47:32uh uh dangerous things they talk to each
47:36other they talk about each other as
47:38brothers and sisters and not as
47:42friends like they talked about each
47:46part of like they are part of each other
47:48just because they had to protect
47:50uh you know each other's back that is
47:54and when you have trust in your company
47:58and when you have trust in your teams
48:01things are going to get done a lot
48:05and faster than you can ever imagine
48:08the challenge though and here's the
48:12trust very often also leads to
48:16hiding things right like when you when
48:19you have like an underperformer
48:21or people that are not uh um performing
48:23really well just because people
48:25love that person their whole team tends
48:29that person and and sometimes that
48:31becomes really hard for you to see um
48:34so building trust between the team is
48:36important but also building trust
48:39between you and your team is very very
48:42to open this connect this line of
48:45communication and making sure
48:47that they can come to you and talk about
48:49you know what really is happening
48:52um it's also important so it's all about
48:54how do you trust your team how your team
48:57to trust you and how they trust each
49:03we have done uh important things
49:07to to foster trust uh one of them
49:10is that um you'd have fair programming
49:14i don't know if you are familiarized
49:16with the pre-programming methodology
49:19an agile methodology where you have two
49:22one is driving while the other one is
49:25watching and then and you know kind of
49:30uh the the process so
49:33while the one that is driving the one
49:35that is driving is like talking
49:36and letting the partner know
49:39about their thoughts and why they are
49:41doing things in a particular way
49:42while the partner is just saying oh
49:44maybe we could do this
49:46in another way and after
49:49i think every two hours they switch and
49:51then the other one becomes the driver
49:53and then the the one that was uh driving
49:56becomes the co-pilot
49:58and the interesting thing about this is
49:59that you learn a lot
50:01about someone just watching them working
50:06and how they do things and then you
50:10a lot because when you work like for
50:13engineers i don't know
50:14uh how many of you actually have
50:16engineering in your life
50:18but when you are building something like
50:22building your code you're typing and
50:25very often you find yourself thinking
50:28that the others don't know
50:29what you know or the others don't know
50:32how to do things the way that you do
50:35and then when you pair program with
50:39and you see them working very often
50:42actually you learn something
50:44and then you realize that you don't know
50:47just creates stress right and that's
50:50that was the most effective thing
50:52i've learned in my career to for team
50:55that was the most effective thing like
50:57just getting those two people
50:59working together on something
51:02it's very very powerful
51:06um the fourth one for team building is
51:09hold people accountable um
51:13and holding people accountable doesn't
51:16making people like making shame of
51:18people like publicly
51:20right like just making people feel
51:22uncomfortable publicly that's not how
51:24that's not holding somebody some someone
51:28what uh what holding people accountable
51:36you will be on top of things when things
51:39functioning right like when you have
51:40committed to something and you are not
51:44to deliver that you will search
51:48the whys behind that and very
51:51and you will find a way like you find a
51:54sorry you find out that uh
51:57that could be either a lack of knowledge
52:01somebody that just like didn't tell you
52:05about you know their personal problems
52:08or people that uh have have
52:12told you that they knew something that
52:13they didn't and they had to learn
52:16so hold accountable means that you will
52:17invest in it like you you
52:19research you figured out why that thing
52:22and and you will you will find out
52:26um and often it's just like silly things
52:30that you can solve pretty fast uh change
52:33the way that people work
52:35but there are some times that you know
52:36you just figured out that
52:38the person is very underperformed and
52:40and you have to coach them
52:42uh either coach them or
52:45figure out a better better role for them
52:49hold up hold people accountable actually
52:52means that you you care you care about
52:54the work that your team
52:56is uh producing and you care about what
52:59that person is capable of doing
53:02um and i like i said before
53:05the other one is like let your team
53:09like man there's nothing like it's very
53:13when you have an issue like today i am
53:16the cto i can see all the
53:18the the channels in slack and sometimes
53:21i i get into the award uh war room
53:24channel which is like when something is
53:27like everybody just go to that channel
53:31and figure out a solution sometimes i
53:33know the solution but i just like watch
53:35them going through the mud together uh
53:38just because that creates
53:40bones right like they they figured out
53:42things together and they'd
53:43learn together and when team learns
53:46they they are they are a lot stronger
53:51um i will run through the other two
53:55like the other the sixth one is like
53:57making hiring a collective decision
54:01so this is a google example
54:04at google you will never see a hire
54:08being done by the hiring manager alone
54:12or by you know whoever like the hr alone
54:16or something like that
54:17um hiring at google is a committee
54:21that decides on top of uh based of
54:25uh based on all the the comments that
54:30did along the process they don't know
54:32names they don't know gender they don't
54:34age they don't know anything they only
54:38a number and the profile that's all they
54:43and they make their decision
54:44collectively right like they they
54:46read the profiles they read the comments
54:50um they discuss about that and
54:53collectively they decide whether that
54:55person should be hired or not
54:57also as a major at google you don't get
55:02employees what you do is actually you
55:05help hiring people and then the
55:09which team that person actually fits
55:16interesting topics about like how to how
55:20do how to build teams and what i like
55:24example for about google is that you
55:27eliminate completely bias
55:30um you don't get like a manager hiring
55:33that that you know they're gonna protect
55:36uh it's it's very likely that you're
55:38gonna have people that are actually
55:40uh a good fit for a team and will
55:42function well with your team
55:44more people thinking about the process
55:46is much better than just one
55:49and lastly like just celebrate success
55:53a good example and it's actually a funny
55:57i had i was director of engineering and
56:00a monthly budget that i could spend um
56:04having like drinks and things like that
56:06with my earth engineers
56:08so i didn't spend that for a quarter and
56:11i told my team that if we reach all the
56:13we would go to a steakhouse i don't know
56:16are you guys from from the bay area or
56:18not like thomas are you
56:20in san francisco or something like that
56:21yeah so there is a steakhouse in palo
56:23alto called flamingos
56:26and that's a very expensive state called
56:28sick house i had a team of seven people
56:31uh so after three months we actually
56:33reached the deadlines
56:34so i took them in that was like a two
56:38thousand and five i think 2500
56:41uh kind of like check
56:45at the end of the night but we actually
56:48uh you know in a really good way
56:52on monday of course like i got a call i
56:54got called by by the cto
56:56say that i spent too much but like that
56:58was a really good way of celebrating
57:00what i noticed after after that was that
57:03people asked to go you know have drinks
57:07uh every once in a while like every 15
57:11every 20 days and what surprised me was
57:15on those uh happy hours
57:18people were like talking about their
57:19lives you know like they were sharing a
57:22uh stories about the previous work um
57:26you know their families and they were
57:29getting stronger uh together and
57:31creating stronger relationships and that
57:33was one of the things that made me
57:34really really proud of so um
57:38i think thomas those are the topics that
57:42for team beauty and and
57:45culture do you have any questions out
57:49yeah um can you give us a example of you
58:00um but but you one example of firing
58:04because of culture that's what you mean
58:08it's kind of vague but i guess any type
58:11example yeah yeah um
58:15so i i have i have a few examples
58:19um you know firing people is not the
58:23the most to do it's it's very unknown i
58:27it's very annoying for any reason
58:30like for many reasons it's it's sad
58:33because you are writing someone that has
58:37you know like uh letting that person go
58:41somebody that was uh into the company
58:44they wanted to do something but they
58:46a good fit that's really really hard and
58:48also like it really depends from
58:50case to case but this is in particular
58:54happened in brazil um
58:57so at the time carter was a company
59:01where the the work hours
59:05at least to start was very like it was
59:10in the in in silicon valley you'd open
59:138 30 and everybody would show up 8 30
59:17um have the first meeting 8 30 a.m
59:20and we lost a lot of good engineering
59:24during the hiring process just because
59:28so in brazil we started a little later
59:32because of the time zone defense so we
59:34would start at 10 30 a.m
59:37um so this engineer was like
59:39consistently getting
59:41like 12 p.m in the office or
59:4511 30 in the office he would miss all
59:47the morning meetings
59:48with the teams with the team and that
59:53really really i was really upset about
59:55that so i started to talk to him and
59:57coach him but that was
59:59just the first thing what actually
01:00:02made me to to make a decision on firing
01:00:06was that he he would never
01:00:10um he'd let his team down
01:00:13most of the times and the way that he do
01:00:16is we would have a deadline that was a
01:00:19commit committed by the whole team he
01:00:21would have a piece
01:00:22of engineering that he would have to
01:00:24deliver and then he decided to refactor
01:00:28engineering without talking to anybody
01:00:31so he did not deliver what he would do
01:00:33what he had to do and he also would not
01:00:36finish the refactoring
01:00:38so he he kept doing that consistently
01:00:41because he was so upset about the code
01:00:42he was a good engineer
01:00:44he was so upset about the code that he
01:00:47he could help he couldn't help him
01:00:50so i coached him for three months
01:00:54like telling him hey what if you use
01:00:57i can give you the fridays for you to
01:00:59refactor the code
01:01:00so use your fridays refactor the code on
01:01:03from monday to thursday do your job
01:01:07like just get things done um it didn't
01:01:11um so i i also asked him hey
01:01:16can you pair program with this other
01:01:19my hope was that he could learn a
01:01:22different way of doing things
01:01:24it didn't help it didn't work so
01:01:27suddenly at the third month i i told him
01:01:31look i hate i have given you all this
01:01:34i haven't shown you like all those those
01:01:37things that you could do to improve
01:01:38yourself but you haven't done it and
01:01:41and like you i have no choice like now
01:01:44it's just like hitting the progress of
01:01:48that was what happened awesome and
01:01:52another question is uh a little bit
01:01:56how do you come up with a set of core
01:02:00from scratch yeah from scratch
01:02:04it really depends on the things that
01:02:06like it always starts with the things
01:02:09the founders believe you know literally
01:02:13culture is always a reflect
01:02:17of the founders those like it's just a
01:02:21um so this culture of like showing you
01:02:25every day it's it's hearing like harry
01:02:28wakes up like 5 00 a.m or i think and
01:02:31then he thinks that the first thing
01:02:32you have to do is just like have a
01:02:33meeting with your team and figure out
01:02:36uh for the day so
01:02:40uh it always starts with that and then
01:02:42secondly like once you
01:02:44once you you you have written down all
01:02:47the things that you believe that are
01:02:51try to figure out how to convert the
01:02:53things that you believe
01:02:54into things that can help your team to
01:02:58um like i said before right so
01:03:01so another example of that is that um
01:03:04harry and carter he's
01:03:07he's a funny guy he doesn't he he comes
01:03:10from the engineering background
01:03:13and he doesn't like much product
01:03:16he thinks that product managers that
01:03:18don't have the right mindset
01:03:20so he created this core value called
01:03:23just to please engineers i guess but the
01:03:27figured out the data model first once
01:03:29you have the data model
01:03:31then you can build the product uh
01:03:34so this is this is what he believes
01:03:38and that is cool because when it comes
01:03:40down to making decision like should we
01:03:42build a prototype and get in front of
01:03:44customers like or
01:03:45or should we just like figure out where
01:03:48how they relate to each other uh how the
01:03:52actually works and then and then build
01:03:55this data model first
01:03:57and then then build the the products on
01:04:02so the answer would be always like all
01:04:04right let's get the engineers
01:04:06in a room let's explain them what we
01:04:08have to do and figure out what is the
01:04:10data model so that's uh
01:04:12how it helped a lot great and
01:04:15uh mini change the question uh
01:04:19can you uh if possible can all mirror
01:04:22yourself and ask cause it's
01:04:28oh i don't know if she's still here
01:04:31yeah can you yeah let me see if that
01:04:35so i just had a question about like team
01:04:38identity you mentioned that trust was
01:04:40crucial to team building
01:04:41um so like once the team is like
01:04:43somewhat established do you have any
01:04:44thoughts or tips on like
01:04:46building a team identity to further
01:04:48strengthen that kind of like team
01:04:53uh that's a really good question
01:05:01the the rule of thumb is that this has
01:05:03to be a bottleneck thing
01:05:05it cannot be top down right like it
01:05:07cannot be something that
01:05:08you as a manager or leader you just like
01:05:11come in and say hey like here's
01:05:13here's our identity he's what we're
01:05:16and and also you have to define what
01:05:18identity means to you right like
01:05:21to me identity means
01:05:25what are the things that uh we believe
01:05:28technically right like how
01:05:31we like to do things how we like to work
01:05:36work uh define how the process
01:05:40within the team actually work um
01:05:43a good example of that is that i i had
01:05:46at some point i was managing like nine
01:05:48different teams and
01:05:55half of those teams were using scrum
01:05:58in the regular basis and the other half
01:06:04um and like i like at some point
01:06:07my manager came to me and said hey like
01:06:11uh standardize for his crime i said no
01:06:13like how can you do that like this is
01:06:15this part of how they work and if they
01:06:19they're uh um they are you know
01:06:23producing a lot right they are they are
01:06:26that way it's the way that they work but
01:06:29they have chosen that way
01:06:31um what you can do though you can coach
01:06:34like you can you can try to lead in the
01:06:37path of figuring out
01:06:38what they actually like what they
01:06:41believe and how they do things
01:06:43um and the way that iu do this
01:06:46is uh promoting the the brainstorms and
01:06:50the conversations
01:06:51at fliber and at carter we have uh
01:06:55what we call off sites uh we do that in
01:06:59where the offsites is not to talk about
01:07:02you know things that didn't work it's
01:07:04not to talk about
01:07:06clients it's not to talk about the
01:07:08company it's actually hey
01:07:10like what are the things that we believe
01:07:12how we wanted this to work we're like if
01:07:15if we and i like to use that thing that
01:07:17that method for like
01:07:19if you have no gravity and
01:07:22you have unlimited money what would you
01:07:26do like how do you change the way that
01:07:28you work how do you change the way that
01:07:30which kind of resource would you have
01:07:34um so that's and the reason why we say
01:07:37no gravity is just to say hey like
01:07:39imagine that anything is possible
01:07:40right like anything is possible and you
01:07:45enough money to make it happen what do
01:07:49i think like provoking those
01:07:52is actually what what will eventually
01:07:55generate the identity
01:08:00yeah all right um thank you actually i
01:08:02have another question as well
01:08:04um yeah so uh you mentioned earlier
01:08:08um like the team potentially
01:08:12covering up for a member
01:08:16yeah that just sounded really
01:08:17interesting because that's not something
01:08:18i like ever really thought about but
01:08:20have you ever personally experienced
01:08:22something like that or do you have like
01:08:23a real life example you kind of
01:08:29yeah yeah absolutely um so
01:08:33at flipper we look for engineers that
01:08:36um that can do like what we call fully
01:08:40stack right like they can work on the
01:08:41back end in the front end
01:08:43um and then at some point we had this
01:08:46he was really good on the front end um
01:08:50we asked him to do some things in the
01:08:51back end and we knew that he'd not
01:08:54uh he would not be like
01:08:58a player in the back end because it's
01:09:00just like something that he was not
01:09:01familiarized with
01:09:03um and what happened was that
01:09:06i was looking for knowing whether
01:09:10he could learn that thing or not
01:09:13like whether he could improve his skills
01:09:16and what happened was that the team was
01:09:18actually like building things for him
01:09:21and then he would just like show up with
01:09:25but like that was not that was not him
01:09:29you know if it was it was just like a
01:09:31tiny space like he didn't have to
01:09:33you know uh go deep into that and
01:09:36learn which i was expecting um
01:09:40and the reason the reason why i knew
01:09:43that was that because
01:09:44when i asked questions why did you do
01:09:46things in that way like somebody
01:09:48else would answer oh like this way is
01:09:50actually the best way of doing this
01:09:51because blah blah blah
01:09:52blah like why is not like why him is not
01:09:56answering that right it's kind of like a
01:09:58teacher and it's cool like somebody
01:10:00actually do do the the work for the
01:10:04uh and then when the teacher like asked
01:10:06about that that work like they don't
01:10:08know how to explain
01:10:09it's kind of the same thing so that was
01:10:16and like how did you like kind of handle
01:10:23yeah that's pretty tough um because if
01:10:26you think about that
01:10:27initially what triggered the whole thing
01:10:31was me asking him to do something in the
01:10:33back end right like and then
01:10:34he tried to to do like what i tried to
01:10:37understand was what
01:10:39drove him to basically lie
01:10:42right like to instead of saying hey i'm
01:10:44not capable of doing that or i i
01:10:46need more time to learn like asking
01:10:49somebody else to do things
01:10:51um and and i it turned out
01:10:54that after a couple of unwants in that
01:10:57particular case i figured that he
01:10:59he was not having this kind of like
01:11:00psychological safety you know that
01:11:02that he was it was okay for him to make
01:11:06um and because the team liked him so
01:11:08much he would ask the team hey like you
01:11:11can you do this for me but like uh
01:11:14and and then like just i i will look
01:11:18um and at the end of the day
01:11:22like it was it was all about
01:11:24psychological safety in that case
01:11:27um so i tried to learn more like why why
01:11:31why him is not having psychological
01:11:33safety like is that something
01:11:35is that the way that i am behaving the
01:11:37meetings is that the way that the team
01:11:39is it's holding each other accountable
01:11:43or what why is that right
01:11:46and it's just like going really deep um
01:11:50eventually what i learned from that case
01:11:54in the early days that engineer was
01:11:57fast with things in the front end
01:12:01um and then we told him oh you are
01:12:04super fast like you're fantastic like
01:12:08you can do things in just a day like
01:12:11like uh i would just say like uh
01:12:14his nickname like tony would do do
01:12:17things amazing like tony can do things
01:12:22that created a sense that he is the 21
01:12:26you know what i mean like i am the 21
01:12:30day i cannot do things in two days i
01:12:31have to do things in one day
01:12:33or i am the tiny that do things fast i
01:12:36slow and then later i had to actually
01:12:40because like he was just using the the
01:12:42way that we were complimenting him in
01:12:46uh as the standard that he cannot go
01:12:49and that was what what created this like
01:12:52psychological and safety for him
01:12:54because he was saying that he was not
01:12:56producing at the same level he was
01:12:58producing before but now he's
01:13:00also asked to do things that he was not
01:13:05oh okay that's really interesting
01:13:06especially how you have the term like
01:13:08psychological safety and like
01:13:10kind of looked deep into it more um
01:13:13yeah i think that's all i have the
01:13:14questions i have thank you
01:13:16sure awesome um and there's a
01:13:20another question of um just as an
01:13:24um do you have any suggestions for
01:13:28in college um how do they get started
01:13:32come up with ideas or make friends even
01:13:40usually you start with things that you
01:13:45that's literally how i start things like
01:13:48what is it that bothers you the most
01:13:50in your life and i can you know i bet
01:13:54also it also bothers other people too
01:13:57um i just figured that out like
01:14:01as an entrepreneur you are always
01:14:03looking for problems to solve
01:14:06right uh but very often they are
01:14:09actually around you
01:14:10and you're not even noticed right so um
01:14:14my advice to you is like stop for a
01:14:17and and try to think what are the things
01:14:19that you hate that you have to do every
01:14:21single day or that people do to you
01:14:23or companies do to you or whatever like
01:14:26what are the things that
01:14:27you really really don't like and then go
01:14:30and solve that problem
01:14:33that's as simple as this um if you
01:14:37if you are looking for solving problems
01:14:41then you'd have to look for a partner if
01:14:44from the technical background you also
01:14:47will have to look for a partner that can
01:14:48you know help you uh with that idea
01:14:52um my advice is i
01:14:55explore feedback as much as you can
01:14:59don't be afraid of somebody you know
01:15:03or something like that um
01:15:06because like if it's a real problem it's
01:15:10not that easy for anybody to
01:15:12build it if that was like that you know
01:15:16wouldn't exist in the first place um
01:15:19so share your ideas and figure it out
01:15:22collect feedback as many feedback as
01:15:26that is what will help you on your
01:15:30and just to give an idea like before we
01:15:34we talked to 500 uh sellers
01:15:38uh that that used to sell on on amazon
01:15:42like 500 that was the number
01:15:46awesome and this question is for um
01:15:50like that people with without a
01:15:52technical background
01:15:53how do they um come up with the
01:15:58or come up with the app or stuff like
01:16:01um to solve the problem that they're
01:16:05yeah um so there are there are lots of
01:16:10um there are companies that are
01:16:13building mdps um so if you have a good
01:16:16idea and you have
01:16:18to have some money that you can invest
01:16:20on that just to see
01:16:21you know how far it gets um
01:16:24you can you can find those companies
01:16:27it's usually they are
01:16:28outside of the united states which is
01:16:30good because like you can
01:16:32take advantage of the uh currency
01:16:37um so you you would you don't have to
01:16:39pay a lot of money to get some
01:16:41some mvp and also like don't try to make
01:16:45and in the first place all you are
01:16:46trying to do is to validate your
01:16:49like it's not it's not that you're
01:16:51trying to do the next facebook or the
01:16:52next generation of instagrams
01:16:55uh it's just like you're trying to test
01:16:57whether that problem exists and somebody
01:17:00use a product to solve a problem that's
01:17:05um so that is one way the other way is
01:17:08literally like just
01:17:09getting uh just get an enrollment in one
01:17:13that will teach you like the very basics
01:17:15and i can ensure you that it's not that
01:17:18you will get a mdp i have an example
01:17:22a friend of mine uh he is now the ceo of
01:17:26his name is sean o'keefe um
01:17:29and he was the accounting manager i
01:17:32think's accounting manager
01:17:34for uh carter and he asked me to
01:17:38he took a boot camp for four months
01:17:41uh he learned by himself he asked me
01:17:43some advice i helped him a lot
01:17:45he also asked me to be to become a kind
01:17:48of like a junior engineer in one of my
01:17:51brought him in he did that for about
01:17:54and he built his own mvp and he got
01:17:58into ui combinator how
01:18:01how cool is that right so it's literally
01:18:03like up to you it's just
01:18:06trying trying you know if you really if
01:18:09you really believe in that just try hard
01:18:15awesome um let's see i think there was
01:18:19one more question let me let me look
01:18:27oh it's asking um what's the
01:18:30transition like going from offline to
01:18:34um has the company being remote
01:18:37this whole time or was it like a tough
01:18:45it is it is hard um
01:18:49no we were not remote all the time we
01:18:53in some of those locations and then we
01:18:55became remote after kobe
01:18:58um and even being remote after covid
01:19:02from i think in december probably like i
01:19:06moved from california to
01:19:07new york area just to be in an office
01:19:09closer to my partner
01:19:11right so it's like the leadership it's
01:19:14kind of a crucial to be
01:19:15together so it is tough um i think the
01:19:19biggest challenge is
01:19:21the main expertise um what we do is
01:19:26and it's it's a it's a very specific
01:19:30um and you not just have to manage your
01:19:33team on building products and all these
01:19:35kind of things but also have to transfer
01:19:37knowledge right like domain knowledge
01:19:40that has been the biggest challenge for
01:19:42us um finding people that either have
01:19:45done similar things before or have
01:19:48worked integrated with some of those
01:19:50systems it's really really hard so
01:19:52we have to spend a lot of time like
01:19:54explaining how you know
01:19:56things like what a lead time is where is
01:19:58a warehouse why warehouse
01:20:00why sellers put a warehouse between you
01:20:03know fulfillment centers what is that
01:20:04fulfillment center and things like that
01:20:06that's where uh things are hard besides
01:20:10it's like it's not that hard a lot
01:20:13especially for tech companies a lot of
01:20:15engineers they are
01:20:16kind of used to work from home because
01:20:19they either had a like
01:20:24side projects that they would work at
01:20:28so they would have like a quiet room or
01:20:30something like that already there are
01:20:32some gamers that have their
01:20:34own room for playing games um
01:20:37so it's not it's not that hard i think
01:20:40you know if you have i think the biggest
01:20:44thing is like how to establish the
01:20:47that you want um and transferring
01:20:51i think that is that has been the
01:20:56and just to elaborate on that um do you
01:20:59are you guys gonna stay remote even
01:21:07well i like personally i don't like
01:21:11um i think there's something special
01:21:14about being in the same room
01:21:18writing things on the white board you
01:21:21pointing things on the screen of each
01:21:23other and then say hey like this is the
01:21:26you know we should do this and etc i
01:21:28think there's something special about it
01:21:31um with that being said i don't think
01:21:34will ever be like it was before
01:21:38so what i think that would happen with
01:21:40us is that we're gonna have
01:21:42what i'm calling like flash moments
01:21:45like basically moments where we have to
01:21:48in the same room together like bring
01:21:51people from brazil argentina travel
01:21:54just to get something that's really
01:21:57done or to get some kind of strategy
01:22:01like you know some ideas uh rolled out
01:22:05so i think those flash moments will
01:22:08but i don't believe that we will have
01:22:12a really big office with like hundreds
01:22:16um i think i think the world would be a
01:22:21and and a lot of the great talents they
01:22:23will not like that
01:22:25at least for the next i'd say the next
01:22:32awesome i guess one last question i got
01:22:36is um what's your
01:22:40uh what's your opinion in um
01:22:43working at a big firm like google and
01:22:46graduation uh compared to
01:22:49to start starting your own company or
01:22:53like a small team
01:22:56yeah um i'm an entrepreneur so that
01:23:00question is quite obvious
01:23:01for me right like don't go to google or
01:23:07join join an early stage company build
01:23:10your own company try new things like
01:23:13here's the thing like if you ask me
01:23:15where's the thing that i regret the most
01:23:18is not have tried things earlier
01:23:21right like not not not when i was very
01:23:25um because it's when you have time to
01:23:29and learn from those failures right like
01:23:31it's when you're gonna do things
01:23:32you know you're going to make things
01:23:34wrong and if you make things
01:23:36right at the first time fantastic like
01:23:39the results the outcome are greater than
01:23:43ever expect but but the reality is that
01:23:47you will not learn as much in
01:23:50working for google as you'd work learn
01:23:53like working for us at flavor for
01:23:55like if you come and work for flavor i
01:23:57can tell you one thing you're gonna
01:23:58you're gonna touch aws and you know like
01:24:02cloud all the the different databases in
01:24:05day and then you have to assemble that
01:24:07because i don't have
01:24:08uh infrastructure engineers to do it
01:24:10like you're gonna have to learn how to
01:24:13but if you work for google everything is
01:24:15just there you know
01:24:16all you have to do is just like hit a
01:24:18button and then you have the repository
01:24:21um if you hit another button there's a
01:24:25done for you that you only have to just
01:24:27apply your code and
01:24:28like come on you know if you are
01:24:31for an accounting or businessman like if
01:24:34you join google now like sorry like
01:24:36google will not let you to
01:24:38run a team you know
01:24:41and i can tell you that at carter i had
01:24:44i had someone that was fresh granted
01:24:47like after one year working as an
01:24:50he was like running a team a managing a
01:24:54engineers and he was like yeah i don't
01:24:56know what to do it
01:24:57dude let's let's figure out together but
01:25:01that was the best thing that ever
01:25:02happened to him of course he made a lot
01:25:05but after that he was he grew so much
01:25:09faster than everybody that just joined
01:25:12that um i think he's way
01:25:15more prepared now and
01:25:19the other thing is like you have time in
01:25:21your life to do those experience
01:25:23you know those experiments and if you
01:25:25don't like it you
01:25:26still can join google you still can join
01:25:30you're young enough to do that
01:25:34very awesome uh that was all the
01:25:37i got here um thank you so much for
01:25:41joining us it was very insightful um
01:25:44and with that uh this will be the end of
01:25:50great thank you so much it was a lot of
01:25:52fun thank you yeah appreciate it
