Off my rocker?

I have always referred to my career as a good meal; I started with the main course in the meat business, moved to desert and kept the ambition to ultimately achieve the digestive liqueur. It looks like I may have to postpone the latter however…

Let me quickly bring you up to speed: from September 1st, I — 55 years old and by definition too old to suffer from a midlife crisis — started working full time with Charles-Axel and Henri-Jérôme — my sons — in a startup called Overview. We are building a digital platform designed to improve financial capabilities and facilitate inclusion. Faithful to my gastronomic vocabulary; quite a mouthful.

How I’d love to see if your reaction resembles the facial expressions of the people that I told personally: from mild bemusement to utter bewilderment. The old guy went off his rocker! Call in the nurses!

Off my rocker because I change industry? Because I start from scratch in a different consumer segment? Coming from an extremely competitive environment, where growth only occurs if you can push your competitor out by means of incremental improvements, I am really excited to be at the forefront in trying to bring a truly innovative product to market that adds value to the daily life of our users. A product that solves a real and pressing problem. A product that will be designed with the utmost of attention and respect for the user.

Off my rocker because we are targeting Africa as our introduction market? Not the easiest of markets, agreed, but neither was developing business for a SME in Japan, China, Middle East, USA and India. Also in Africa, the road to success will depend on spending a lot of time in the market, understanding the environment, doing our homework, selecting the right local partners and — most importantly — constructing relationships that are based on respect and confidence.

Off my rocker for leaving an established company behind for the uncertainty of starting from scratch? At least this also allows me to ditch the mistakes I have made in the past and believe me, there have been a few. I am leaving behind the set ways of doing things in an established structure. I am referring less to my former colleagues here than to myself; I am indeed brutally taken out of my comfort zone. Guess what? It feels refreshing!

So what have I learned in spending this first week with my two Millennial colleagues in the confinement of a 50 square meter office?

First of all, I have experienced how productive you can be when you work in an uncluttered environment. I don’t mean the physical environment here, but rather the absence of habits, attitudes, privileges and agendas. Things are easy in this new set-up: all interests are aligned and it is do or die for all involved. Body parts are on the table. If we fail, we’ll have to call in the nurses and stitches will probably not suffice.

Secondly, there is this dominating sense of purpose. Probably not all that illogic if you read the previous paragraph, but still remarkably efficient with regard to making progress. It has been a long time since I have been able to work in an environment that produced so little waste. Six main development roads have been defined and objectives determined for every one of them. That’s it. They will evolve in parallel and will be reviewed weekly and monthly. Will we keep it up? Most certainly in the early stages of the company’s development. Keeping it up in the long term will largely depend on us maintaining the culture and setting the example for the talent and stakeholders that will join the organisation later.

Finally, man these young guys are transparent! Thanks to technology everything is out in the open, shared, co-operated on, reported back, reviewed, etc. Google Drive, Trello, Slack, Notion, shared agendas, sprints, sprint reviews, stand-up meetings,… Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Making mistakes daily, sharing them, learning and moving on.

So am I off my rocker? I can’t vouch for everything else that I do, but what Overview is concerned, I can assure you that my decision may be ambitious but rational. We won’t exactly be lounging on the veranda in the next couple of months or years, but we are determined to make it happen. To keep it rocking!

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