True North
The Second Ten Years (at One of the Web’s Most Iconic Companies)
It’s day one of the highly anticipated SaaStr Annual Conference. The hype and over the top valley buzz is palpable — 10,000 attendess, a super mario themed stage and even a SaaS rendition of 99 Problems by JayZ to intro the prolific Jason Lemkin.
The lights dim in the theatre for the opening sessions and then it happens… O’Canada begins to play and my heart skips a beat! Are we really kicking this week off with a Canadian keynote?!!! Chris O’Neil, CEO of Evernote, comes to the stage. A proud Canadian, Chris’ journey from the beginning days of playing hockey in a small town up north has lead him to become one of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after leaders.
Chris has recently tackled the challenge of turning Evernote, a beloved globally recognized brand, into a productivity powerhouse beyond its already sizeable 200M member base. In his opening keynote, Chris was genuine and honest — no surprise with his Canadian roots — about the uphill battle he faced in focusing the product and shrinking priorities at Evernote.
Turning around an elephant is hard — yes the pun was intended ;) So how did Chris reenergize and reboot the company? He made the tough calls.
“As a company grows a leader has to recognize that often times the folks that start a company are different than people who can scale.”
So the team was turning over and Chris had the challenge of building a cohesive leadership team at the next level down.
Now this is a topic that resonates. Up north, access to talent and building a quality team is not a new conversation. The battle for top performing, highly experienced talent and the strategy of how to access them is discussed over coffees and in board rooms daily.
Spending 50% of his time hiring, Chris unequivocally conveyed that the team you build is the company you build.
The reality is — this is and always will be the job of the CEO. Regardless of size or scale of the company, just like the saying goes with VC fundraising — CEO’s should always be hiring.
On a weekly basis Chris reviews 50–60 candidates, conducts 5–6 interviews and holds a recurring hiring meeting with his senior management team.
So what does Chris look for?
THREE TIPS:
o Hire for presence of a tactical strength
o Don’t hire the candidate with the most experience — hire the number two or three person in their domain — someone who has the fire in the belly to actually go prove something
o MAKE STRETCH HIRES
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
“COURAGE, FOCUS, DISCIPLINE — ride through all of the noise”
o Evernote is a company who initially caught lightning in a bottle and then tried to do too much and as a result had a lot of bad PR. If you’re going to the steer the ship back to true north — develop a thick skin.
o Have the courage to make tough calls — especially with people — and do it with humanity recognizing the contributions they have made to the team.
o Focus and discipline — a company can’t have all things and be all things to all people. Don’t change course.
Two months ago we brought together 800+ Canadian SaaS leaders in the Nation’s Capital for SaaS North. I guess our secret that Canada has produced tier one tech leaders has spread to the valley!
The L-SPARK team is at SaaStr all week long! Check out our daily recap articles here!
