Feb 1, 2022
Yiannis Karavassilis Of CloudKid On How To Take Your Company From Good To Great
ALWAYS, maintain professionalism. No matter how wrong a customer can be, no matter how much they can aggravate you, it is your job to maintain your professionalism and to be kind and helpful.
As part of my series about the “How To Take Your Company From Good To Great”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Yiannis Karavassilis.
Yiannis Karavassilis is the COO and Head of Label at CloudKid which was launched in 2013 as a YouTube channel to help fans discover new music. CloudKid now has 5 million subscribers with 60 million average monthly views and, more recently, it launched a record label that is dedicated to developing artists.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Thank YOU for welcoming me here!
I’ve been involved in music ever since I can remember. I grew up in an expat community in a little city in the Netherlands, and I was lucky enough to be exposed to an education which really nurtured creativity. Since the age of seven I was playing guitar, singing in choirs and by the age of 12 I started learning the basics of music production and rock history appreciation. By the end of high school I had already performed with numerous bands and even had started a Rock School where I was helping younger kids form bands and play shows. After high school I did a year of Business School and then immediately jumped into an Audio Engineering course at a university called SAE. I went on to earn a bachelors there in Sound Engineering & Music Business, and right out of university got my first internship at a very young startup record label in the Netherlands. We managed to take that small label out of the back of my then-bosses’ apartment to a proper company with dozens of employees within 4 years. After that I joined the company I run now, CloudKid. I was always super involved in the YouTube music influencer scene and saw an amazing opening to help grow a record label with the backing of a brilliant and big tastemaker brand like CloudKid. I’ve been the COO of CloudKid for 4+ years now and we’ve grown the company and have signed hundreds of records and seen several artists’ careers blossom in that time.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
In the very early stages, the hardest part was obviously the general doubt you face both personally and from your peers. I think the hardest period was definitely when I first started my first internship. I remember having to walk dogs and do cat sitting as a side gig to make ends meet. I would also do some random DJ gigs for parties and make sound effects for some small video game studios. I was just literally doing anything I could to support myself and still put in 10–12 hours a day at that small record label. I think the drive just stemmed from my hunger to make music a sustainable job for myself. Even to this day, I have my full-time job but still spend countless of hours outside of work pursuing my own career as a music artist. If you love something enough you naturally just want to work extra hard at it. That’s why I think it’s always important to put your time and focus on an industry / profession you feel passionate about.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
I think the funniest and most dangerous thing I did early on in my career was when I was building my first ever basement studio for the first record label I was working for. I accidentally made a negative and positive cable touch. They were connected to the building’s mains and I managed to make the whole building go dark. Luckily, I was fine, but I just remember the whole building freaking out about the situation. I guess my biggest take-away from that, from a management perspective, is to not take shortcuts and invest in certain things the right way. My boss put me in a situation that could have not only seriously injured me, because I obviously had no experience with dealing with electronics or building studios from the ground up, but it could have damaged other people’s equipment and companies. You’re looking at a situation which could have backfired and cost the company a lot more than just hiring a professional to handle the wiring and basic set-up of the studio. This is a tendency a lot of startups have; they look for the cheap and easy solution to save a couple bucks and to get things done quicker. I have found that waiting a bit longer and doing things the right way pays off tenfold in the long run.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I think it comes down to our ability to stay focused and do everything we tackle correctly and at the highest quality as possible. If we hire someone, we hire someone full-time who fits our ethos and culture. If we take on a new venture we make sure it is 100% aligned with our core vision and business model. We also put a big focus on culture, not just in terms of the people we hire internally, but also in terms of the partners we work with and the artists we sign. Ultimately this just creates a positive and enjoyable environment to work in which boosts everyone’s morale. From a fan perspective, I think it comes down to our incredible branding and impeccable curation of music.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Your job is not everything. That’s what I tell all my employees and colleagues. Stop working when office hours are over and go enjoy your life. Don’t have your work e-mail on your personal phone, don’t check Slack on weekends, use your holiday days and DONT WORK. We also encourage everyone’s passion projects or side hustles. It is so important to have something you care about outside of work whether it’s a sport, being creative, having your own little venture or anything else. Ultimately people who are happy, perform better. People’s performance isn’t solely based on the hours spent working.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I honestly think — outside of the countless businesspeople and artists I have met who have inspired me and helped me improve — the main person I must thank is my wife. We’ve been together since we were 17 and she has ALWAYS believed in me and always pushed me to follow my gut and be myself. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have someone your life who just believes in who you are as a person. I think another area that she’s helped me improve in significantly and show me the importance of is emotional intelligence. I honestly think having a high level of emotional intelligence can make you become an incredible manager.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The title of this series is “How to take your company from good to great”. Let’s start with defining our terms. How would you define a “good” company, what does that look like? How would you define a “great” company, what does that look like?
A good company is a focused company with a clear vision. If you cannot pinpoint what your true vision is and cannot explain why you’re doing certain activities and how that helps support your main goal, then you are probably doing something wrong. A great company is defined by its vision and its people. Ultimately your employees are your company. If no one is motivated, inspired and in turn overworked, stressed etc. you can never become a great company. It is so crucial to also know and understand what each executive’s role in a company is, to be able to achieve this. The CEO is there to inspire and to keep building on the vision. The COO / General Manager is there to motivate the team and to make sure everyone is living up to their fullest potential.
Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to lead a company from Good to Great? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Be understanding and compassionate.
If you want your employees to want to put 40+ hours a week to work for you, just paying them isn’t enough. Understand peoples’ needs and respect that people have their own lives. Be accommodating and respect their privacy.
- Be helpful.
Create a system where you can put in enough time every day / week to answer questions employees may have. Avoid showing that you are annoyed and don’t be snappy if you think a question isn’t the wisest. You want your employees to feel respected and not embarrassed for being proactive and trying to learn more.
- Take time to connect.
It is so important to actually put in the time to connect with your team on a personal level. Take an interest in people’s passions and goals. Listen to them, you will learn more than you think. It is very important to not make the conversation about yourself but about your employee.
- Invest in proper systems for internal communication and workflow.
Having the right systems to ensure everyone is working seamlessly together is extremely crucial. Taking the time to review your systems a couple times a year is crucial for your company to continue to become more efficient for your employees to continue to work smarter.
- Lead by example
If you expect your employees to follow certain protocols, make sure you are following them, too. There’s nothing more hypocritical than lecturing employees to do certain things when you are blatantly not doing them yourself. People want to be led by example, if they feel like they are trying harder than you are, they will lose respect for you and over-time just not follow your orders.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Can you help articulate for our readers a few reasons why a business should consider becoming a purpose driven business, or consider having a social impact angle?
It makes a lot of sense. I think that if you don’t have a bigger / more important goal behind what you’re doing, other than just generating revenue, you and your employees are just not going to care that much about what you’re doing. Having a higher purpose behind your business ultimately inspires you and your whole team. People want to feel like they’re not wasting their life away at a meaningless job.
What would you advise to a business leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth and “restart their engines”?
Stop following ‘industry standard’ practices. Everyone keeps saying it’s ‘industry standard’ and I always get extremely annoyed by that statement (although I know I’ve used it countless of times too). The only way to continue to grow or re-invent your business model is to think outside of what everyone else is doing. Be uniquely yourself as a leader and as a company. Put yourself in the position of your customer and/or your consumer. You NEED to continuously challenge yourself and your choices to continue to stay relevant and interesting.
Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
I think our approach has always been to invest our time into things that we know can be the least impacted by outside factors and are essential in people’s daily lives. For example, we invested heavily in digital music streaming when a lot of other companies where investing heavily in live shows (because the returns are higher in the live space). Obviously, during a time like COVID, we had a huge win because streaming — which, under normal circumstances isn’t a necessity for most people — became even more important during a time where people couldn’t enjoy going out. Of course, being the devil’s advocate here, if some of these streaming services go out of business or, even worse, if the internet breaks down, we will be facing the same hardships. Our approach is to keep finding ways to invest in new mediums that can help us grow and that we feel are resistant to tough times.
In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?
I’ve said this quite a bit already, but I firmly believe most managers underestimate their own employees. So many companies have failed, not due to having a sub-par product but ultimately because they mistreated and undervalued their employees. Again, it’s not ALL about just paying people a salary, it’s about giving perks, giving your employees space, leading by example, building a meaningful connection with everyone, inspiring people and making sure everyone’s morale is high.
Great customer service and great customer experience are essential to build a beloved brand and essential to be successful in general. In your experience what are a few of the most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience?
Try to over-deliver on people’s expectations. You can’t always keep everyone happy, but you can always try to be proactive to cure a situation and leave a positive impression with someone. Also, most importantly, always and I mean ALWAYS, maintain professionalism. No matter how wrong a customer can be, no matter how much they can aggravate you, it is your job to maintain your professionalism and to be kind and helpful. Ask for feedback and take it to heart so you can continue to improve. Even if the feedback might not be great, it’s important to take it in and make the customer feel like their feedback was valued.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start or run a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?
They focus on the growth and revenue over the vision. Don’t get me wrong, from a practical perspective you need to make revenue and to continue to grow, but not if that clouds your vision. By that I mean, don’t start adding random services and ideas in your business model just to allow yourself to make more revenue.
Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would start a movement which allows people to connect meaningfully with animals in a constructive way and not by shaming people who are ignorant on the matter. I believe if you can learn to respect and value an animal’s life and worth, your perspective of the world fully changes and you can really learn to love and be kind to other humans.
How can our readers further follow you online?
My personal linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yiannis-karavassilis-62a01b96/
To keep up with CloudKid:
https://www.youtube.com/user/CloudKidOfficial
https://www.instagram.com/cloudkid/?hl=en
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
