Rewind is riding a wave. The company, which protects companies’ data by backing up their SaaS applications, recently announced $15M in financing to fuel its growth, and its first acquisition.
From the very beginning of the company, Mike Potter, its co-founder and CEO, has been a big proponent of building a great culture. His efforts, alongside those of his co-founder James Ciesielski, and his team have paid dividends, with a ,4.9 rating on Glassdoor, 100% CEO approval ratings, and a mind-bogglingly high eNPS score of 82!
That focus on making sure that the team is taken care of has translated into superior product quality, with an average rating of 4.8 for Rewind on the ,Shopify App Store, and 4.7 for QuickBooks Online.
And those product ratings reflect a focus on product quality and customer success that has been instrumental in generating the company’s rapid growth.
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In this video interview, Mike shares some of his tips for how to build a great culture, maintain great growth for your startup company and still put your kids to bed at night! You can watch the whole video interview ,here (37m29sec), or click on the links below for Mike’s insights on specific questions.
I hope you can take away learnings from Mike and Rewind that help you in growing and scaling your startup – enjoy!
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- The impact of starting up Rewind as a side gig
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- The benefits of a previous “failure”
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- Culture of accountability
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- Weekly “15 and 5”
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- Encouraging work-life balance
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- Recovery and taking time away from work as a means to unlocking insights
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- How the vision has expanded and grown
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- Leading and guiding
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- Success and growth help
,How do you go about finding and attracting the best fit talent for Rewind?
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- Alignment on values
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- Expectations
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- Basing hiring and all major decisions on values
,What do you do to onboard new hires to get them started well?
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- Doubling the team during COVID while keeping engagement and eNPS scores high
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- Cultivating a sense of camaraderie
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- Great processes led by the people function, Mike talking about values on the first day
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- All hands meeting with lunch every two weeks, introducing new hires with 4,000 words
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- Mutual inspiration
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- Don’t believe in annual performance reviews
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- Ongoing performance management system
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- Weekly or biweekly check-ins; quarterly goals and reviews
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- Connection from individual to departmental to company goals
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- Bonus program
,What have been the synergies and trade-offs between growth culture?
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- From the beginning, a focus on culture over growth
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- Prioritizing VCs who align with the company’s focus on culture
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- The importance of growth in keeping culture
,Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently 3-5 years ago?
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- Don’t second-guess decisions
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- Learning from a prior “failure”
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- The importance of defining your mission, vision and values to help the company scale
