GeekWire 200 startup leaders share leadership advice on navigating the COVID-19 crisis – GeekWire
Clockwise, from top left: Accolade CPO Mike Hilton; PayScale CEO Scott Torrey; DreamBox Learning CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson; Auth0 CEO Eugenio Pace; Moz CEO Sarah Bird; Act-On Software CEO Kate Johnson; Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer; Puppet CEO Yvonne Wassenaar; DefinedCrowd CEO Daniela Braga; and Icertis CEO Samir Bodas. (Company photos)
There is no coronavirus playbook.
Company leaders are facing an unprecedented crisis as the COVID-19 outbreak spreads worldwide and impacts businesses across multiple industries.
Seattle was the initial epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak. Local tech executives have been navigating their teams through these choppy waters, forced to make difficult decisions with their business and employees.
We caught up with leaders running some of the top companies on theGeekWire 200, our ranking of the Pacific Northwests privately-held tech startups. They shared how they are adapting in a crisis and offered leadership principles to follow. Many also expressed hope and optimism for the future. Read their answers below. Companies are listed in alphabetical order.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
Accolade Chief Product Officer Mike Hilton: We are living in a very different world as a business, a community, a family, individually. Our business is to help our members understand their healthcare options and benefits and we are balancing the needs of our 1.5 million members and our 1,200 employees dispersed across the U.S. and Prague 24 hours a day.
Our challenges are unique, and the way weve risen to address them has been remarkable to manage and experience as a leader.
We identified an uptick in flu-like symptom calls/messages from our members in late January, and knew that it wasnt a coincidence. At that time, we activated daily stand-up leadership meetings to ensure the right support for our members, our customers and our employees. We activated a pandemic response plan to address the increase and urgency of member healthcare needs. We created new service offerings and partnership specific to COVID-19.
We had always planned for the ability to have large segments of our service offered by a remote workforce and with the onset of COVID19 we accelerated the technology, training and processes to enable the complete work from home capability across the entire business. This involved moving our full member service center to work from home. So it wasnt just a work-from-home strategy for our employees, but creating a remote service operation. It was a major undertaking, and has been hugely successful.
And of course, like all businesses, were supporting our people who arent familiar with or comfortable working from home. Weve always been a Zoom video culture, but our team is making sure theres emotional support in place, along with some fun and levity. Our virtual book clubs, mindfulness work and happy hours go a long way right now.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
Transparency is foundational to our culture, and were bringing that through every day with clear and open communications to our team weekly updates, a balance of information and support, personal stories and empathy and of course laughing at the dog and children who want to join the meeting. It all ties back to our mission, where Technology, Empathy and Expertise are the core. Were leaning heavily on all three of those today. They guide our decisions as a business and they remind us that were doing the right thing for our people, our customers and our members.
Ive also always valued agility and speed not just in our technology, but in our people and the way we all work together. Accolade is filled with problem solvers, people who excel at identifying challenges, think and act quickly, get to the right results, and learn and adjust. These qualities are essential right now and theyve helped us at this achieve remarkable progress and stay focused.
What gives you hope and optimism?
Our people. Truly. Everyone one of our people at Accolade has stepped up to tackle this challenge for our members and each other. Theyre supporting families with their health needs and concerns, helping our customers understand how their benefits make a difference in peoples lives, and being there for each other. Weve all had to make adjustments and sacrifices along this path, but Ive never seen a group of people at Accolade, in our community, across the world work harder and smarter to make an impact. The All in Seattle movement is an example of this. The human spirit is alive and well in the world. We will look back hopefully soon and acknowledge the power of this connection we have with one another and genuine pull to take care of our neighbors. What can be more hopeful than that?
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
Act-On CEO Kate Johnson: Our first priority was to ensure our employees and their families were safe and healthy so we quickly moved to a work from home environment. Next we felt it was important to remain understanding and flexible while making sure our people felt empowered in their new remote work setup.
Fortunately, we are a tech company that has the infrastructure and technology in place to swiftly move to remote work with minimal delay or strain on resources. However, we are a tight-knit group that has grown accustomed to collaborating and riffing off one another in person. So, weve needed to make sure everyone is on the same page and feel like they have the right resources to confidently do their jobs at home while juggling kids, pets or even poor internet connections.
While we were able to transition our team almost seamlessly into the virtual world, many of our customers have not. To support them through this pandemic, we are having ongoing, one-on-one conversations to pinpoint their unique situations and figure out how to equip them for success. We are exploring all of our resources and aiming to be team players. Whether this means offering clients additional active contacts at no extra charge (we sent out a letter to our customers offering them a free, one-time increase in capacity to cover any coronavirus-related communications) or expanding our contact blocks as new needs come in, we are staying as nimble as possible.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
We are putting two principles before all else right now: compassion and transparency. The immense pressure of the unknown can have profound effects on a person. Even if our employees arent necessarily afraid of being infected by COVID-19, there are many that are fearful for the future and uncertain how this economic downturn is going to impact themselves and their loved ones.
Our Employee Assistance Program in place offers our people (and their families) great resources to maintain mental and physical wellbeing. From sharing webinars on how to manage stress to parenting tips to finding work-life balance, we empower each other to take care of what matters.
On top of this, we think its imperative to internally communicate in a clear and timely fashion. Executive leadership at Act-On has done its absolute best to provide transparency into the financial health of our company and our course of action planned to weather the storm. We have a smart bunch working with us and being as transparent as possible helps ensure we are all working towards the same goal.
To keep the channels of communication flowing, we are holding regular all-hands, virtual meetings, frequent communication over Slack, daily standups and a weekly update email on all the important happenings from the week.
What gives you hope and optimism?
Im proud of how our team has spooled up productivity and collaboration so quickly. We havent panicked and flailed our hands. Instead, we have invested our energy into finding caveats for new business and adapting to service unique customer needs in this environment.
We have seen an uptick in activity and new uses for our software and clients are turning to us for our expertise. Being able to link arms and help others has given us all much-needed focus and purpose in a time of uncertainty. On top of this, in real-time we are all learning how to adapt and support each other when in-person interactions are strained or non-existent. Although the circumstances are grim, I think we are learning fast and finding priceless insights and lessons that we are leveraging now and into the future.
We also have done our best to keep morale high internally. Our team comes together around virtual watering holes and happy hours and has actively been sharing email threads with parenting tips and even pet photos. I am constantly reminded how much we all crave human connection, and thankfully, we live in a time where technology facilitates connectivity and we dont have to go it alone.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
Auth0 CEO Eugenio Pace: There is an undeniable impact that COVID-19 is having on businesses worldwide, and its a completely unprecedented time in which we are living. We have taken many precautions to ensure the health of our employees, such as closing offices, halting all travel, and having our 650+ employees work from home.
For our customers and partners, I feel fortunate to have had a Business Continuity Plan in place for several years to prepare for any kind of crisis, including a pandemic like this. Designed precisely for situations like this, our Business Continuity Plan provides detailed steps for comprehensive action to ensure there is no degradation of quality to the services our global customers rely so greatly on.
Due to this pandemic, companies have been forced to transition to remote working, and many of them have struggled because they dont have the right infrastructure and tools in place. Our inherently remote-centric work culture (55% of our employees already worked remotely) has given us the freedom and flexibility to transition easily to 100% of our employees working remotely for the past couple weeks, which has been a seamless shift.
Personally, I truly miss going into our office every day, but I know that the day will come soon when I am able to return to our Bellevue HQ and our global offices open back up. Because remote work is part of our DNA, we wanted to share best practices for anyone interested, and have created a line of communication to our Developer Relations Advocates for 1:1 video calls to hear what works for them.
Were continuing to look for ways to help organizations throughout this pandemic, specifically authentication and authorization challenges, and are offering free tools for startups battling COVID-19, including our Auth0 Startup Relief program, as well as workforce authentication free until Aug. 31 (up to 500 users). Weve also joined the Seattle Foundation and other community-based organizations to support local workers and families most affected by COVID-19.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
At Auth0, we care deeply about ensuring that our employees, customers, partners, and their families are safe. In uncertain times like these, this commitment only becomes stronger. We also know that Auth0 provides critical functions for all of our global customers, and we hold our responsibility with the utmost business ethical importance.
I understand that everyone is dealing with many different stressors as a result of COVID-19. It is a very stressful time. Kids are at home from school closures (like mine are), people are caring for family members, and everyones worlds have been turned upside down. As a result, my biggest piece of advice has been to be extra kind, patient, and flexible.
We truly believe in our core value of One Team. One Score, and are committed to it through thick and thin. I have been so proud to see the acts of kindness and patience at Auth0, and team members stepping up to help each other over the past few weeks. We all need to continue to be kind to each other.
What gives you hope and optimism?
These are not easy times, and in times of uncertainty like these, knowing that were all in this together gives me hope. I strive to be optimistic and view this as an opportunity to gather information and push through our own previously conceived boundaries, and take this challenge as an opportunity to learn, grow, and better ourselves. This situation will continue to provide challenges in the months to come but, ultimately, it will end and well all come out stronger and better than before.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
DefinedCrowd CEO Daniela Braga: People come first. The safety of our employees and the community is our priority, so our first measure was to have all our employees from the four different offices working remotely from home, always aligned with the governments and local authorities.
As of now, with DefinedCrowd fully remote and still at full speed, we are monitoring the situation very closely. We are taking the pulse of the economy and our clients, and their reaction to the development of the events, although we havent noticed any significant slowdown in our industry. And, although we dont have plans to slow down our hiring numbers that will reach 500 employees by the end of the year we are currently reviewing the plan monthly, instead of quarterly, to take any measures needed in a timely manner.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
Resilience is a very important value to keep in mind during this situation. Keeping focused and not losing sight of the end goal while living day by day is very important to fight and overcome difficult situations.
What gives you hope and optimism?
Staying focused on the end goal. I like to remind myself that we know this is a phase and we will get out of it. As this is a global issue, affecting almost the whole world, it gives me hope to think that we will take on this problem, learn our lesson, and come out of it re-energized as a whole species.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
DreamBox Learning CEO Jessie-Woolley Wilson: We had three goals that anchored our COVID-19 response strategy: Take care of our employees; take care of our customers (students, teachers, and administrators); take care of our company: DreamBox Learning.
First, we closed our offices about three weeks ago so that our teammates would be safe and secure and able to work from home (WFH) in this uncertain environment.
Second, we provided additional resources to schools and parents to help them navigate the unfamiliar distance learning environment. We were determined to help schools keep learning on even if they were forced to close as part of their COVID-19 risk mitigation strategy.
Finally, to take care of DreamBox, we are doing contingency planning. No one knows how this economic crisis and pandemic will play out nor how long schools will be closed. So, in response to the uncertain business environment, we have plans for several scenarios ranging from a rapid return to normal business operations to an extended period of schools being closed. While we stretch to support learners and learning guardians, we are tightening our belts to ride out the crisis.
One of our company values at DreamBox is Be Adaptive. We ask young learners to be adaptive as the technology personalizes their learning experience. At this time, were also asking our employees and customers to be adaptive and remain flexible as we respond to a rapidly changing environment and wait for this extraordinary COVID-19 situation to clarify.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
It is during times of uncertainty that leaders need to balance strategies to help you survive new threats and those that will help you thrive into the future. We can never take our eye off the future.
Our approach to this crisis will remain grounded in these three goals: take care of employees, take care of customers, and take care of the company. If we take care of employees first, they can continue taking care of customers. If were taking care of customers, were taking care of DreamBox.
What gives you hope and optimism?
Despite the sudden slowdown in purchasing, we are seeing significant demand and signups for DreamBox. In just 10 days, we have 1.3 million more students on our platform as a result of our free expansion offer for existing school customers as well as the free trial that weve made available to parents.
Our source of hope is our strong belief that despite the difficult circumstances, the outcome of many more schools and parents leveraging edtech solutions like DreamBox will be an acceptance that blended and online learning are an essential part of high quality education and that these tools are here to stay. The $13 billion set aside for education and edtech in the economic stimulus package is evidence that our national and state education leaders will continue to invest in effective and engaging technology-supported learning solutions in the years to come.
We are confident that DreamBox can become an essential and permanent part of personalized learning strategies now and into the future. We also remain optimistic about the impact we can have for ALL students moving forward.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
Icertis CEO Samir Bodas: Right now, we are thinking of what we do now as the Four Rings of Responsibility: My Ring: #takecareofself;The Family Ring: #takecareoffamily; The Community Ring: #takecareofcommunity; The Business Ring: #takecareofbusiness.
As part of Rings 1 and 2, we are encouraging all Icertians and their families and focusing the companys energies on taking care of their health and safety first and foremost.
Next, we are all crowdsourcing from the team needs in the community, and pitching in to help wherever appropriate e.g., we have committed to helping kids with meals in the Seattle area and providing personal protection equipment to healthcare staff in Pune, India, where we have a large percentage of our employees. We will continue to take care of the community in every which way we can.
The 4th Ring taking care of our customers and business enables Icertis to support our suppliers and Icertians, who then spend money on things they want/need. And that cycle is key to get the world economy going again.
Specifically, were keeping close to our customers to understand the challenges theyre facing and work with them to address those head-on e.g. one thing that we heard early on was that our customers are looking to their contracts to understand and address the commercial implications of the current crisis. We have deployed a swat team to help customers with this data analysis.
Also, typically, our customers rely on their internal ICM champions as front-line support to provide guidance and address blocking issues, but access to their primary internal support personnel may be disrupted due to illness, family medical leave or other workplace disruption. To address this, we created a complimentary 24/7 Expanded Support program to help companies maintain business continuity.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
Its times like these where your investment in culture and values really pays off. At Icertis, we are guided by our FORTE values (fairness, openness, respect, teamwork, execution) and some of our tough calls like restricting travel to key customers, mandating work from home early in the crisis, sharing everything we know the good, the bad, the ugly openly, etc., were actually made with FORTE as the guiding light.
We have found that despite the lockdown, despite the WFH, despite the anxiety, Icertians have globally stepped up and have not missed a step, which we attribute to the strong culture and values of the company. From a culture perspective, our investments in building a strong employee-centric workplace have made the jump to virtual work almost seamless for us.
What gives you hope and optimism?
I think the following quote (sent to my wife and me by our friend, Stacy) by the great Dumbledore sums the mood up well Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. Seeing the outpouring of love and goodwill from people around the world, it feels like 7.5 billion people just remembered to turn on the light!
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
Moz CEO Sarah Bird: Our first priority is to protect the health of our team members, vendors, and community by mandating physical distancing, encouraging self-care, and being flexible with work hours. We also gave Mozzers the Friday off a couple weeks ago just to take a breather and get organized.
Second, were supporting marketers around the world by offering our in-depth and accessible SEO training courses for free until May 31. Since launching early this week, the promo code has been used over 50K times! Were also working with customers who are deeply impacted by COVID-19 to provide temporary relief during this period. Were all in this together and we desperately want our customers to succeed.
Finally, were changing the way we plan and make decisions. Were throwing our forecasts out the window since none of the trends in the business are going to perpetuate. Were spending more time thinking about scenario planning; instead of make strategies based on past performance, were imagining what-ifs and coming up with possible paths forward.
We are examining and postponing many of our major expenses so that we can better future-proof the business for the uncertainty ahead. Weve set up daily leading indicators reporting and were following the news closely so that we can adjust our decisions based on the most current data at the time. Necessity is the mother of invention. We have the creativity and courage to make it through this time period stronger than ever before.
Were entering this period from a position of strength and were lucky to not be in an industry that is immediately catastrophically impacted. Regardless, our position of strength doesnt insulate us from being prudent and proactive in the face of a very dynamic business environment.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
Our core values, TAGFEE, are helping to guide us through, especially Transparency (step up communication), Generosity (many people inside and outside the company need our support right now), Empathy (hold space for the suffering of others), and Fun (find ways to bring joy to those around you and embrace gallows humor).
Were all in this together and we must operate from the presumption of mutual support, creativity and sacrifice. There is no us versus them.
I love this Churchill quote: Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. Keep going. Do the next right thing. Courage.
What gives you hope and optimism?
I am very encouraged by the compassion and creativity I am seeing in the Seattle community. I love the All In Seattle movement, for example. Im seeing lots of neighbors helping neighbors. Vancouverites, our neighbors to the north, are erupting into cheering every night at 7 p.m. to cheer on their healthcare workers. There are some deliciously dark jokes out there that help get me through the rough spots; Im a believer in the power of laughter.
Finally, Im encouraged by the fact that were seeing the earliest hit regions make good progress against this disease when they take aggressive action. With determination, ingenuity, sacrifice and compassion, we can move from surviving to thriving in the months ahead.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer: At the heart of our business is a commitment to customer-centricity. This is and will remain our most important value, but its become increasingly important in these current times. We understand that remittances are a lifeline for people, especially in the face of a worldwide crisis. Everything were doing as we manage through the uncertainty of this situation is made with our customers top of mind. Every day our team shows up and we strive to be better for our customers because they depend on us.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
Realizing this situation has individual implications for everyone, all of whom are responding to this crisis differently, Im trying to be my authentic self and empathic as I lead the team. We have to take care of ourselves and each other, and each person deserves room to process this in their own way. My entire team has stepped up its communications, and Im personally committed to keeping a very open dialogue with our global team. Weve instituted weekly company-wide meetings, regular Q&A sessions, and virtual lunches and happy hours for me and the team. Im committed to answering questions openly and authentically because were all in this together.
What gives you hope and optimism?
The Remitly team. Watching the team show up every day in the face of what were witnessing in our communities, and watching them work together to serve our customers. Being united in our mission and having a sense of community gives me hope. While times are difficult now, this is temporary, and we will emerge stronger, having gained an even deeper understanding of our customers and an unparalleled sense of customer empathy across our global team.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
PayScale CEO Scott Torrey: We are staying very close to our customers right now. They need our guidance, support, and leadership more than ever. These are tumultuous times and the more that decisions are driven by facts and data the better the answer. We are there for our customers to make sure they have the best data presented in an optimized way to make great decisions for their businesses.
What leadership values and advice are you following during this crisis?
As someone that has recently moved back from 7 years in the UK, I cannot help but think of the words of Winston Churchill who said A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity and opportunity in every difficulty.
My belief is it is time for all of us to heed this advice and look at the world as one full of difficult opportunity!
What gives you hope and optimism?
Having been through the .com crash of 2000, September 11th, and the meltdown of 2008 we have enough recent history to know that this too shall pass.
What steps are you taking now with your business in response to the economic crisis?
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GeekWire 200 startup leaders share leadership advice on navigating the COVID-19 crisis - GeekWire