Interview with Kelly McDonald, Founder & CEO — Kyndoo
Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Kyndoo. Kyndoo is a data platform that aims to solve the biggest problems in Influencer Marketing, Fraud, Attribution, and Content Safety. The company validates an influencer’s audience while also providing in-depth metrics on the audience demographics, interests, and MSAs that helps marketing professionals go beyond the aesthetics when choosing the right influencer to represent their brand.
Kelly is a seasoned executive with a strong track record in building high-performing teams from scratch and is an expert in sales and operations.
Can you please share a little about yourself?
I am originally from Michigan. I have been living in the Bay Area for 6 years and grew up outside of Detroit. I started my career at Quicken Loans as a sales executive. I learned the basic fundamentals of sales from Quicken Loans, which were well known for sales education. I was part of their early success journey and I was lucky to get these fundamentals early in my career. I left the company not to be complacent. I am a risk-taker and it has paid off so far.
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good, to go for the great.”
Please talk about your Entrepreneurial Journey.
Before I moved to California, I knew I wanted to found a company. I was looking for the right problem to solve for several years.
The idea is to move to Silicon Valley. If you want to start a tech company you should start in Silicon Valley. Of course, you can do that anywhere. But there is something about surrounding yourself with like-minded people that are trying to solve problems. There are also a lot of funding opportunities.
Previously, I had tested a lot of ideas and realized that I was not passionate enough about those problem areas to dedicate 5 to 7 years of my life to them. My advice to other founders is that you test your ideas before going all in. Once you start, it could take anywhere from 7 to 10 years to build a company. So you want to be sure this is what you want to before hiring a team, taking funds, and wasting time on something you don’t love enough to push through the tough days.
Why did you start Kyndoo?
I tried to solve my specific problem. I wanted to hire influencers and I couldn’t figure out if they were real or not. How did I know they were real? This question changed everything for me. There was so much data, and it was not hard to figure this out. If there was no existing tool, then I was going to build it. That was how we started Kyndoo to solve this problem. It started with the data. My background is in sales operations and marketing. As a sales executive the more data I had, the more accurate my predictions and outcomes were.
When I built the company, I really wanted to build something that provided better predictions. AI and Machine Learning helped me in the past, and that was the route we took with Kyndoo. Influencer Marketing is a $15 billion market, and the opportunity is great. It is a blue ocean and a lot can be done in this space. Over the last three years, it is one of the many problems we have solved.
What are some steps you took to define your company’s purpose and vision?
Over the years, I have made notes and am still revisiting the purpose and vision of those notes. It is a living document since we are still a young company. So, our purpose and vision provide a direction for what to do and what not to do. For Example, We are not offenders of the Gig economy. All of our jobs are paid, and we do not offer any in-kind offers to Influencer Marketers. That means we don’t do some deals. That’s ok for us. We started with values, and then we formed our mission and vision. We are constantly discussing mission, vision, and values with the team.
How do you make sure you and your team are working on the most important goals for the company?
I used OKRs in previous organizations, which are further along. . In smaller organizations, everyone has ten different roles to play. It is critical for each person to know what is the most important goal to work towards. I am a big fan of OKRs FrameworkUnderstanding what to focus on and how it impacts the company, is important for each team member.
Ideally, weekly priority setting helps to achieve overarching annual goals. The priorities may change a bit on a weekly basis, and we need to accomplish everything without losing the focus on long-term goals. As part of weekly and daily meetings, revisiting our priorities is crucial to stay competitive and dynamic. The order of priorities will be decided by executive strategy meetings with advisors and leaders. As a CEO, I need to make sure the advisors and the team are all aware of the order of priorities and check in with the team constantly especially in this remote world.
What are your most effective methods to motivate your team for outstanding results?
Praise is always the most effective way. Thank people for their hard work and appreciate them when you catch them doing something right. At the same time, holding people accountable and providing candid feedback is important. Radical candor is important at all levels. As an executive, you won’t receive a lot of positive or negative feedback. That’s why I make sure to provide feedback to my leadership team about how they and their teams are doing. As a small company, we should focus on getting the right stuff done.
What is the one goal you have accomplished in the past that you feel the proudest of?
On a personal note, convincing my partner to marry me. Honestly! (chuckle) On a professional level: In my previous role at Realty Shares, I had a unique opportunity to join this company when it was already in Series B and started a division from scratch.
As a team, we made $180 million dollars as revenue in 18 months. I had personally built the team and the operation structure, of course, with the help of the team and the company. I was really proud of this achievement.
If you had one piece of advice to someone who wants to start something new, what would it be?
Get Started! Don’t wait for a perfect moment. Get support from your family and friends. You can’t do it alone. For example: If my wife was not super supportive, it would have been incredibly hard. It would have been tough to keep going without support at home. Having a champion you can count on is really important.
I don’t mean “Get Started” as in dropping everything and going all in. You can start with smaller tasks such as launching a landing page, starting with an excel sheet, talking to advisors and customers, and making sure you are doing something every day. The real secret for startup success is -
“Getting a little bit better every day”
Originally published at https://blog.okrshub.com on May 3, 2021.
