Abby Gates

Bio

Abby Gates is the CEO and Founder of Sproutwise. She brings over 20 years of HR leadership experience and four successful startup exits to her work, helping early-stage companies build strong, scalable people operations. Digital Revolution has recognized Abby as a “2025 and 2026 CHRO to Watch” for her leadership and impact in the evolving HR landscape. She lives with her husband, 2 girls, and energetic Vizsla Murphy, in Franklin, MI.

Intro

The principal theme of this discourse centers on the critical notion that a founder's most significant competitive advantage may very well reside not in their product or funding, but in their people strategy. In my dialogue with Abby Gates, the founder of Sproutwise and a seasoned veteran of early-stage startups, we delve into the consequences of neglecting human resources from the onset, a phenomenon she aptly terms "people debt." This concept parallels technical debt, suggesting that overlooking foundational people strategies can lead to catastrophic repercussions for an organization. As we explore various facets of effective hiring practices, the establishment of a values-driven culture, and the transformative power of vulnerability within leadership, we uncover essential strategies for fostering an environment conducive to growth and success. This conversation serves as a masterclass in understanding the intricate interplay between organizational culture and strategic people management, ultimately guiding founders to navigate the tumultuous waters of startup life with greater acuity.

Conversation

The dialogue with Abby Gates, founder of Sproutwise and a seasoned veteran of early-stage startups, delves into the critical concept of 'people debt' within organizations. Gates elucidates that just as technical debt can accumulate in engineering, neglecting the foundational aspects of human resources can lead to significant long-term repercussions. She asserts that an organization's competitive advantage often resides not in its product or technology but in its approach to people management. The discussion highlights the imperative need for founders to prioritize behavioral hiring and cultivate a values-driven culture from the outset. Gates shares insights from her own extensive experience, having navigated four exits and one IPO, emphasizing the importance of strategic foresight in human resource practices to prevent chaos as companies scale. Through this conversation, we explore the nuanced dynamics of startup culture and the vital role of vulnerability and resilience in leadership, ultimately reinforcing the notion that a well-defined people strategy is essential for sustainable growth.

Takeaways

• Abby Gates emphasizes the importance of frontloading human resources work to prevent future people debt, which can severely impact a startup's success.
• The conversation highlights that a founder's competitive advantage may lie not in their product, but in their people strategy and how they cultivate their team.
• The significance of behavioral interviewing is discussed, illustrating that understanding how candidates respond to pressure is crucial for startup environments.
• The episode articulates the concept of culture being either intentional or accidental, urging founders to examine which culture currently governs their organization.
• Gates shares her insights on the necessity of defining non-negotiables before making hires, as this establishes a solid foundation for company values.
• A critical takeaway from the discussion is that hiring processes should focus on storytelling rather than credentials to assess candidate suitability effectively.

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Please meet today's guest, Abby Gates.

There's gotta be some way to frontload some of this work in a way that nips this in the bud or builds intentionally with the people in mind. In an organization that doesn't feel like the stakes are so high and that the margin for error is so low.

What if your biggest competitive advantage as a founder isn't your product, your technology, or even your funding, it's your people strategy? And what if getting it wrong from day one is quietly accumulating a debt that will eventually cost you everything?

My guest today is Abby Gates, founder of Sprout wise and a 16 year veteran of early stage startups, where she's been through four exits, three acquisitions, and one IPO. Abby has seen firsthand what happens when founders treat HR as an afterthought and what happens when they get it right from the very beginning.

She calls it people debt. And just like technical debt, it will catch up with you.

In this conversation, we dig into behavioral hiring, how to build a values driven culture before it's too late, where grit really comes from, and why vulnerability might actually be a founder's secret superpower. This one is a masterclass. Let's go. Hello, Abby, and welcome to the podcast.

Hi, how are you? It's so good to see you again. I'm really excited for this.

Well, we talked a lot about where you live now and we'll explain why in a minute, but I like to start with where are you actually originally from and where do you live now?

It's a good question. I wish I had an easy answer for that because I feel like my simple answer is I'm a Midwest mutt.

My family hails from Chicago, which is where my parents had met, and I was born just outside of Chicago, though I grew up in southwest Michigan. When my, I think my parents had decided that why wouldn't they go where they vacationed, especially if it was within driving distance.

So my dad would still commute around the south shore of Lake Michigan to get into the city every day, though we grew up in this idyllic, very rural tourist community called Bridgman. But then I went to high school in Indiana to move closer to the city. And then I've been to Detroiter for the last, you know, just over 20 years.

So it feels like I'm just a rock solid Midwesterner at my core. But I can't pinpoint any one place where I would say this is my hometown.

Well, I, I, I did grow up in, in what was at Birmingham for the first half, I guess, and then still in the same school district, the town. The tiny town that you live in now, Franklin.

So random.

Yeah, it is so random, since we just. We. We got connected by an outreach through Lake Den. That's how we got connected.

Yeah. It was totally by chance. And I. I mean, not only in the tiny town, but your home was.

I could throw a softball and hit probably the side of your house. It's that close. It is right across the street. I've walked past it probably a thousand times just in my short period of time and in Franklin, so.

How's that for serendipity?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, kind of amazing. And. And that house we lived in was on this fairly large triangular piece of.

Of property where those two roads on the other side of 13 mile. So people who know anything about Detroit know that everything, you know, everybody talks about, hey, what Mile Road do you live on? And. And.

And we Both lived on 13 Mile Road, but. But I was on the north side of it, and you're on the south side of it.

Yeah. And there's. I mean, it's funny, the identity.

I mean, just broadly considering, like, the mile markers in Detroit, but even something as simple as, did you live on the north or south side of 13 Mile in Franklin?

Like, the identity one holds just as something as simple as that just never fails to amuse me how it, you know, sort of slots you into a conversation with someone who knows,.

And then. And then way down the road. 13 Mile Road was the high school I went to, which was Groves. But my.

My parents did something that I now know you shouldn't do to a kid, which is move right as they're entering high school. They moved the year. They moved the summer between my being finished with junior high and starting high school.

And there are two high schools in the Birmingham school district. One's called Sehome, and one's called Groves. I was set to go to Sehome, and every single one of my friends went to Sehome.

And what was really bad about the timing was that in my second year at Groves, I was diagnosed with cancer and had to have my leg amputated. That's a kind of a time when you might really like to have your friends around, and they weren't. And it made a very tough situation tougher.

Yeah. I can only imagine. And it's. I mean, those years are hard anyway. Even if every condition is optimized for, it's. I mean, that time in your life is.

It's emotional whiplash.

It's Big decisions to be made about what you'd want to do when high school is finished and having a strong sense of community and a village around you is, it's massive. I now know that.

But at that, I mean, and I didn't have to contend with that particular part of your story, so I can't imagine how that must have felt at that time.

So before we talk about your current startup, which is called Sproutwise, tell us a little bit about other companies, other startups that kind of set the stage for you to found Sproutwise.

Yeah, it's. I mean the breadcrumb trail is evident. It is as clear as day to me now.

I think in going through those startup experiences, there's so many other emotions that feel like front of mind all of the time and just the general chaos and the pace of that kind of work, it's hard to step back and sort of understand what am I doing within the context of my work and the other people in this, in this company. So whereas now, I guess hindsight's 20 20, but I, I had gotten. So it's been about 16 years working in these early stage companies and I.

It was a very early, let's call it an addiction because I think it was.

There was something immediately about this sort of organization that drew me in and I think it was just the breadth of that kind of work and also the ask and the acceleration of learning that came with it. But. So it was a managed hosting company is where I'd gotten my start. It was a hundred person company.

And I jokingly remember thinking when I was interviewing for it, it was an oddly named company, which I now know is kind of a thing with startups. And it was two very intimidating German men, one of which they had like this long blonde ponytail, the other whose wife was also our head of hr.

And like here was me, I think I was in my, you know, mid to late 20s, sitting across a table by myself from basically the entirety of their leadership team sitting in front of me.

And it was this winter night, it was dark in the conference room and I remember thinking, I'm like, there's one of two things that can happen from here.

I'm either going to get my organs harvested because it's like this is just, it feels like a scary sort of situation to be here where I am right now, or I'm going to get a job or maybe both. But it was, you know, a sub 100 startup. It was a high growth trajectory. Within those two years we went through an Acquisition.

And so I now know and can recognize the milestones that we were gearing toward in building the team. So at that point it was really recruiting focus. So our directive was of course finding people to hop on the bus to help build this thing.

And ill defined chaotic. We were building the plane as we were flying it. You know, all the standard hallmarks of companies at that stage.

But I think what it taught me again is the opportunity to see my own skill set sharpen so much in such a condensed period of time. And so, and I think it was the first time I'd ever worked with technical resources in recruiting them.

So for me it was this insane imposter syndrome from the get. Like can I even identify what good looks like with this kind of candidate?

But I think what you realize is, and what that taught me very quickly was there is a very specific caliber of person, type of person that can thrive in that kind of environment.

You know, I, I call this a good startuper and it's someone who is inclined toward the curiosity needed to thrive in an environment where things aren't as defined. It is the drive and the willingness to solve problems that are again not defined. The roadmap is not there.

The ask is we sort of figure these things out very collaboratively and also this sense of ambiguity that is going to be key in any of those organizations. So I think know that sort of teaching was, was really, really crucial for me at that point and followed me through.

I don't Jathy, I couldn't even tell you how many startups I've worked for at this point but I know that set the stage for I've been through four exits at this point in my career. These were not my organizations but I was a part of it.

Three were via acquisition, one was an ipo and all still held this very consistent pattern of we were going, I was around the hundred person mark and we grew at a very quick pace toward something like the acquisition or IPO route.

But I think, you know, my own career changed over time because in, in those early days of those startups, recruiting is really a sales process and you're, you're trying to find that kind of person who can thrive in that environment. But at some point my interest became we've got to fulfill that promise we're making to someone.

And so when I started to explore the people or HR route it became what is it that makes this organization special and how can we get people to put their trust in, by all measures an untrustworthy structure and help us to Define something that we're not quite sure where it might go. And it really was a whole lot of fun to think this is.

It was the first time I saw HR is this carrot leading opportunity to build work and enable work, enable great work.

And it was a really interesting way for me to think about how my career could manifest over time, especially as I became more senior in these kinds of roles. So it really brought in a brand new way of building with the people in mind within an organization as part of a crucial strategy point.

Whereas before I'd seen HR as a highly reactive protective measure only for organizations. This was meant to build upon the idea and galvanize a team to deliver against it. It was absolutely mind blowing to me to see that that was possible.

I didn't realize that that was a career I could even have for myself. So yeah, a lot of very, very cool things in the midst of this time.

So when you, when you graduated from college, were you already thinking HR is a field you want to go into?

I wish I could say that there was that level of strategy. There wasn't. I had a history in political science degree actually from Albion, which as you know, is in the same conference as Kalamazoo College.

And it was really rooted in just interest in. I now know it was behavior based interest in history. I particularly studied the Holocaust.

And I couldn't wrap my head around how a country at that time in world history could mobilize itself with that kind of goal in mind. Like how would that happen? How would that manifest?

And so I feel like HR was sort of always in the cards because of my interest and that kind of thing. The motivations, the psychology of people.

Though I was gearing toward applying for law school, I clerked in a law firm when I was in college and hated it. It was just like so opposite of the level of connection I now know is important to me.

One on one connection is something I just, I have so much fulfillment that brings so much fulfillment to my life.

So when I graduated I had, you know, $40,000 of student loan debt because I'm the last of eight kids and my parents were adamant about us going to school, but means were, you know, just not there.

So I had a lot of student loan debt and knew, I mean, I could go to law school and I could invest a whole lot of additional money in making that happen, but I had to have some way to support myself.

So I had a friend who was in recruiting and I happened to call up to the company and ask them if they were hiring so my entry point into this was really born out of necessity. There was little to no strategy in any way, shape or form. Coming out of school,.

You were at several small companies. I'm not even sure that they're all, you know, startups, but, but small companies, you had exits, you had an, well, you had acquisitions, you had ipo.

Your role was HR in, in all of them. Right? Okay. With all that experience, I could safely say you're an expert at HR in small companies.

For you to, to then decide to create a new startup must have meant you saw something that wasn't right and that you wanted to fix. What was that? What's this problem?

I think for me it was, I'd noticed this, it was, it felt like this intersection or fork in the road I was standing at.

And it was again the interest in creating a very employee centric building strategy where you had to rely on this very small group of people in order to do something disruptive or very large.

And yet, especially when I became more senior in my role, I was often hired pretty late into that early growth phase, you know, let's call it, you know, like 50 to 75 employees is when an organization would typically hire someone to head up or build the people department. And so I was hired as a recruiter perhaps a little bit earlier to build the team, but someone to manage that strategy came much later.

And so it was quite frustrating for me joining at 75 people and feeling like this accumulation of people debt, similar to what you'd see in an engineering team, like the technical debt that accumulates over time, the accumulation of people debt that landed on my plate.

And also the entry point, usually with some sort of chaos, whether it was big scary things like what could happen if an employee decides to sue the company, or if you've got a rather sensitive exit and don't quite know how to handle it, or you have some pretty grave cultural concerns like interpersonal dynamic strain or an executive team that can't quite gel. So that sort of chaos was either an entry point or it was, we either have recently or planned to raise a lot of money to fuel our growth.

And both of those things really meant we're on the clock immediately, we've got to solve for something rather, rather quickly.

And so it was, we need you to deal with that, build the strategy, be a partner and help to galvanize, be the glue across the executive team to help drive collaboration and this idea of culture from the top down.

And also be the emotional support animal, essentially the therapist for the rank and File team across the board who's trying to make sense of all of this.

So it felt like this really large, impossible ask and sprout wise really came to be because it was, there's got to be some way to front load some of this work in a way that nips this in the bud or builds intentionally with the people in mind in an organization that doesn't feel like the stakes are so high and that the margin for error is so low. And so, you know, this was a couple of things. These organizations typically don't have the capital to hire out an entire team of HR people.

We're typically seen as a cost center, whereas we're, you know, not helping to build the product or not shipping the product or not getting this into the hands of buyers. And so it's a harder, it's a harder cost to justify, I find in earlier stage companies.

And so the approachability from an economic standpoint was a big part of it. The other part of this was I find now knowing my role as a founder has given me this new perspective.

It's a really lonely place to be at the top of an organization.

There are very few people that you can confide in, explore possible solutions because everyone is looking to you to solve the thing, whatever the thing might be. And so I've also found that this has given me this opportunity to engage with founders in a way that can ensure that I'm more candid.

I'm not beholden to a full time job, much like the rest of the organization would be. And so my opportunity for candor is also quite higher too.

And so this structure also insulates that dynamic that I think is really important, especially from a support standpoint for founders.

And I think the last part of this as well is we can be so much more intentional about helping these organizations to grow because it is very front loaded with people operations in mind.

We're helping to take this very nebulous, nuanced part of your company, which is how do you get people to do what I need them to do when I need them to do it and create structure that is intentional and thoughtful and meets an organization where it may be.

It is really hard to do that in a full time capacity because of the emotional nuance of like being the company's therapist or being the catch all person when it relates to things having to do with people.

So the more tightly scoped opportunity to roadmap what's important and prioritize those things was also the impetus for Sproutwise too, because it meant I could approach the work with so much more intention and structure in a way where we could draw a straight line from the work being done in value. Because ROI is really hard to justify in this work sometimes.

And so it's given me this opportunity to engage with a founder in language they have to care about, especially if they're venture backed, which is you have to build a sustainable, scalable organization that helps to meet the needs of your shareholders, or builds an organization that still has the possibility of growth at all.

Sorry for the interruption, but in addition to the podcast, you might also be interested in the online program I've created for startup founders called who says yous Can't Start Up? In it, I've tried to capture everything I've learned in the course of founding and running nine startups over 37 years.

It's four courses, each one about 15 video lessons, plus over 130 downloadable resources across all four courses. Each course individually is only $375. The QR code will take you where you can learn more. Now back to the podcast.

Can you be specific about what Sproutwise does when a company hires you, what do you do?

I think about it. I mean, again, I think about our role in two very specific ways.

There's either the protective element, which is we help to ensure that an organization is protected in terms of things like regulation and compliance. So we are the safeguard between where those rules might be and how your team might. Might engage with them. Engage with the rules.

The other part of this is helping that structure to bloom to encourage great work to happen. So now, you know, we're helping to build structure that encourages alignment in terms of performance.

We're building structure to help ensure that your team understands what growth looks like and that that will happen.

So, so more specifically than that is, I often find we engage with organizations first on that regulatory layer, so making sure that we understand the guardrails or exactly what's expected of every person within that organization. So this manifests in things like what are the rules your employees need to follow?

Like from a handbook perspective, or is there regulation at an organizational perspective that you need to be mindful of and that your employees will engage with. So it's really defining the foundation of rules everyone needs to know and follow. And then from there it becomes the process of work being done.

So building out things like SOPs, what's the expectation in terms of process, whether it's how to follow those rules, performance expectations of everyone on the team, is it like, like how to request things like pto, it's any rule that requires your team to engage with that. And it could also be also things like advisory across your executive team.

I often find some of those early conversations might be how can we galvanize and ensure collaboration across our executive team? So it might be what should we care about and why? As it relates to our executives leading people within their teams.

So it's what is it that requires our attention and when, when we're thinking about growth for the organization.

So those tend to be some of the early projects that we're tapped into is understanding the structure behind the work being done, how that work is done at all, and how to make sure that leadership from the top down is encouraging that work in very intentional ways.

Are you the HR function that reports to the CEO or are you hired by the VP of HR to basically, you know, flesh out his or her team?

Yeah, typically our engagements are you've got a founder or executive team led HR function today.

And so the goal there would be that we essentially become the HR team or start to inherit any of those duties that fall within the people space, that fall on the shoulders of someone within the executive team. Now sometimes it's a coo, sometimes it's a cfo, a lot of times it's a CEO.

So anything that stands in the way of their value to an organization around long term strategy or around, you know, a lot of founders in that space are really focused on revenue generation. Anything that takes away from that and anything that sits within the people space we would often inherit.

That could be anything from things like hiring, recruiting, building out handbooks, building out process guides, building, answering questions about how to take paid time off or how to submit a time card. All of these things, even at a tactical level, often set it with these early stage founders and executive teams.

And sometimes this could be a one off project where it becomes we need a very clear thing built and our starting point is here, our end point is here and we, we fulfill that and then we'll roll off in other times. It's a much more embedded opportunity. For all intents and purposes, we are the HR team that now the team interfaces with directly.

So we become their people organization within that company.

And then is your goal to remain that or is your goal to work yourself eventually out of a job?

The goal is our success is when we've given a running start to a future full time team.

My goal is that that future full time hire new Abby, let's call it doesn't feel like I felt in those instances Where I am starting from square one here, I want to give a scalable way for them. I want to give them a running start.

And so yes, the goal is to work ourselves out of a job up to and including hiring that full time HR resource, whether perhaps like what we've built gives a mid level resource enough room to run for a bit of time. Because the strategy is there. There are times where we'll help to build an hr, an HR leadership function and the team in the midst of our work.

But yeah, we know we've done a good job when we've gotten that organization to the point where they need a full time dedicated people team.

Okay, let's talk about sort of the, some of the nuts and bolts of what you're going to be asked to do probably in any startup that, and you've already mentioned a bunch of these things, but when a startup starts to grow fast and there are like in any, any organization and this doesn't necessarily only apply to hr, but in any organization, one of the things that, you know, I always had to be mindful of as this as the CEO is you can't have too much process when you're small and you can't fail to put processes in place when you, when you cross over certain size thresholds. Or it's chaos. Or it's chaos.

And so what are the people, types of processes that you think these kinds of companies struggle to get right at the right time? Which ones jump out at you the most?

I would say let's talk about something basic because I think this one is easy to understand because any CEO is asking themselves kind of three basic questions when they're looking to build their team. Is this a capacity issue? Do we have anyone in the organization that can fulfill this gap, this need that we have right now?

And that then points to hiring? Right.

You've got this, you know, we need to explore someone who brings a new level of skill to the organization because it either doesn't exist today or the capacity isn't here. The second part of this is to your point process. How is this work being done today? And are there ways that we can create automation?

Are there ways that we can consider this process and how it's done today and create something that more efficiently functions so that we can increase capacity for our team. So it's like the interplay of both of those things and the last of these are patience. Have we done both of these things?

And we need to give it some patience to play out. And so assuming we're taking that and let's say the need is capacity. We need additional people on the team.

We have determined, let's say as an executive team, we need to hire, I don't know, a salesperson. Because you as a CEO have reached your capacity for going out to market. You know, the need for you might be in these other categories.

So putting together this role, hiring this person.

So the early process would be onboarding because again, it's an easily understood process for how do you get someone's, how do you reduce their time to value in the organization?

And certainly for an early stage company, I would never recommend you need to go buy a tool, you need to configure this tool, you need to make sure that it is automated and that we've built out a system that with no human interaction will help to get this person selling and selling well very quickly.

So the type of process there, when we talk about what meets an organization, where they need to be, we've all recognized, for instance, as a leadership team, it's important for someone to do their job very quickly. When we think about onboarding, but what is it? So it's asking questions around where are we today?

Would this person walk in today and understand what we do? Do those materials exist?

Would this person walk in today and understand at a basic level as an employee, would they know how to do the things that the table stakes, things like, you know, submit hours if they're an hourly employee, or where to find their W2 or what the payroll system might be or how they request that time off? Like functionally can this person function as an employee? And then the last piece would be relative to their function.

What does this person need to know in order to be successful and where does that information live?

So those would be some of the basic things that if I were taking a very early stage team just to say, because our goal is to create something that we create the start of a flywheel for a person being able to function well in the organization. But it really does start with very basic questions around have these things been built?

And then at some point we understand where the road will take us to determine complexity. So it really becomes establishing the starting line for something as basic as that and where are we right now and do the basic success?

One of the things that I seem to have to do at every startup and I have to do it myself because I haven't yet brought in anyone that is doing recruiting or any type of HR.

I mean I'm talking about we're like under 10 people and I Have a philosophy, by the way, for the first 25 people I have, it's a rule actually that we hire no strangers. So the only way somebody comes in is that if I or some other member of this very small team has already worked with this person before.

And so, and so we're all leveraging our networks. And that works extremely well because it establishes this high degree of trust between all the people.

So I don't, I don't, you know, I don't need a lot of help hiring right off the, right out of the gate. But what I do find myself having to do, even in this day and age, is teach people how to do behavioral interview.

It's a technique, I guess, that is, you know, I consider it absolutely essential. And, and, and it's, it's aiming to solve a problem which is that hiring is fundamentally a completely different activity than doing your job.

You know, once you're hired, you're doing nothing like the interview process.

And so behavioral interviewing is the only way I know of to get someone to start telling you stories about how they really are to work with and how they handle certain situations.

Yeah.

So many people want to pick up the resume and start asking questions off, you know, like off the resume. And it's like, no, put that down. Put that away. You should have a rule, a second rule, which is hire slowly, fire quickly.

Right. Which is hard to do. And I, I, you touched on something here as well, and I think that's a really good.

What is your starting line determinating, you know, question for me, which is, have you defined as an organization what your non negotiables may be? And a lot of these are behaviorally based. Meaning, like, what are the values that govern your why? Meaning like every maybe 99% of the time.

But I would also venture a guess to say every founder I've ever worked with set out to build an organization that they wanted to work for. Really like the ideal manifestation of if I could build it and it's solving a problem that I am excited to do and means something to me.

What is the organization that I would ideally build? And so I think part of this work is also everything in our people realm is meant to reinforce that. Why?

And it all comes back down to the values that govern the organization. And I touched upon this a little bit ago, which is there are so many things in working for this kind of organization that you cannot teach.

It's an inclination toward problem solving. It is the agility of being able to create structure that is not there. It's not put together for you.

You have to build structure and actually complete the work at the same time.

So so much of these things can be distilled down into the values that are truly core to your organization and then guide things like the hiring process and those decisions.

Can this person function in the way that we function and solve the problems that we're being asked to solve in a way that creates a mutually beneficial opportunity for success? And so at its core it's, it's reinforcing that why.

And all of that is reinforced in every single process and program and policy that we build, which is a reinforcement of the why of the organization. We talk about performance.

Is that person fulfilling the duties that you were screening for in those behavioral based questions in the interview process? Same thing we talk about growth.

Are you fulfilling the motivations, the behaviors that you'd identified in the hiring process and in what you've seen this person perform in your organization. All of these things are tied back to those behavioral based questions which are tied back to the values that govern your company.

What are your non negotiables and what are the things that you absolutely will not bend on when it comes to someone functioning well in your organization?

Well, you just did a beautiful soliloquy about what is culture.

Yeah.

The philosophy of sort of getting at the why is also really essential in how you, how you pitch your company, whether you're pitching it to an investor or in a sales situation. And I actually had to rip up, well, it's, unfortunately I didn't, I didn't get a chance to rip up the chapter in my book on how to pitch.

But I did have, have essentially that in my online course and I, and I ripped it up and changed it completely after spending some time with a brilliant VC out of Israel who, one of the things he kept saying was you should use you, the founder, the CEO who's putting together a pitch should use the word belief a lot, you know, or believe. I believe that. And then you describe a problem and I believe that there is no one who is solving it better than what we have. And here's why.

So you know, the, the word why and the word belief are, are, are, are both you know, there in this, in this approach.

And the same thing is true when you know, only the CEO can establish the culture and it's something they have to do on day one or day negative five actually. And, and, and then has to do a lot of things to make sure it, it stays intact.

And as, as you add more and more people and that, that the people you're bringing in are reinforcing it and extending it and.

Right.

It's, it's so important.

Yeah. I was introduced to this framework Patrick Lencioni.

It talks about the idea of values in an organization and actually used this in a value workshop that I did with an organization that we're still working with now. And the idea behind it is one. I also should add too, that culture and values are a living and breathing exercise.

As the company evolves and you see these, you know, different iterations of your organization, those things may change over time.

The core values that might have been true as, let's say a pre seed organization might start to shift and change over time as you, as you mature as an organization.

And so Patrick sort of frames it in ways that like our core values are those things that are so key to our success and so foundational, but they're also true right now. And so we know that these are our most important and most front of mind values.

But he also talks about things like accidental values, which are the behaviors that have, have become embedded within the cadence of your organization and that sometimes are fortuitous.

They are, they become core behaviors because just out of necessity of problem solving, these things have become a really core way of doing that successfully.

But in other ways, those accidental values become a detriment because they're surfacing things like when under pressure and when your team is faced with a, like performing, are they cutting corners or taking shortcuts? And are those things unintentionally being celebrated?

Because you may say your value is quality above all else, but what you're accidentally valuing is speed above all else. Urgency becomes an accidental value.

And so it is something that takes a whole lot of intention to redefine over time, but also getting really honest with what we are and what we are not.

And I find those exercises are really powerful for a general self awareness at an organizational level, especially with a CEO and our executive team to know what are we and what aren't we and how are we celebrating or reinforcing those things that we've said are important and are they really important?

Hi. The podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book Tech Startup Toolkit how to Launch Strong and Exit Big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years. I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right and especially about what went wrong. You could get it from all the usual booksellers.

I hope you like it, it's a true labor of love. Now, back to the show.

I could talk to you about this kind of stuff for two, two more hours, but I actually only have time, I think, for one more topic, which is, I think an essential topic to talk to every founder about. And it's, it's the concept of grit.

We all know that everybody that is a startup founder, in order to do that, what they're doing has to have a lot of grit. And I'm going to use synonyms for grit like resilience and fortitude, drive, determination, and most of all, courage.

And, and, and so you've, you've started, you've been a founder, you've, you've been at small companies for most of your career, I think. And, and so where does your grit come from? Tell us your grit story, your origin of your, your grit.

I think it's a high willingness to want to be of service.

I think for me it's, it's come back to this idea of how can I create, how can I leave something better than I found it and ensure that others are benefiting from that? I think it's a lift as I climb sort of mentality. It's really important to me to be of service in that way.

And so I think for me, the idea of grit for me comes probably that and the anxiety I felt my whole career, it's this high willingness by, but can I deliver in terms of. Is the capability there? And so for me, it's this drive to do better, to create better, to find a better way to solve a problem. And I just can't stop.

It is just an interest in that.

Maybe it's like becoming more effective or getting better at solving the thing or, or just an interest in the collaboration necessary for that to happen. There's nothing more beautiful for me than seeing a couple of things happen.

One, a group of people who understand where their superpower may be and where they're not great, and supplementing that with people around them that bring different skills to the table.

And seeing a group like that have a successful outcome, it is a really cool thing for me to have helped build those organizations and see problem solving happening right in front of my eyes, but the calibration necessary for people doing the problem solving to do it at all.

And so for me, it is just this just love of seeing that process happen over and over and over again and helping people to get to that point where it's even possible, where they see the power of that sort of collaboration, harnessing their gifts in service of an outcome.

You have this dichotomy you just talked about a minute ago. The way I describe it is something that I learned myself from having a disability.

And what you just described is almost exactly the same phenomenon, which is insecurity. Earlier in this conversation, you mentioned imposter syndrome. I had a bad, bad case of that the first time I was CEO.

But that's the same thing as insecurity. Insecurity for someone with a disability comes because, well, you know, when I get up in the middle of the night, I have to find my crutches.

I Never forget. After 54 years or however many more, I never forget that I have a disability.

So there's that insecurity, especially because around me, especially in my early days of having a disability, everybody said, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do that. So that's insecurity.

But what we learned pretty quickly in startups and in the world of somebody with a disability of any sort of, is that if you focus and work hard at something you care about, you will get better at it.

And if you allow yourself to celebrate the little victories and you make sure that you don't set too grandiose a goal and you work steadily up this stairs, these stairs of accomplishment, well, that starts to feel. Make you feel like you're exceptional. And so, and then you put these two together, and it's insecurity plus exceptionalism that is creating drive.

And you never forget that you've. You've got this insecurity, but you remember how to combat it and, and excel. And this is why you'll.

You'll read, you know, about all the people that are polio survivors and, and we're superstars. Jack Nicholas at golf, Alan Alda, an actor. Franklin Roosevelt, of course, as president.

Right.

And that applies to everyone. And I think what you just helped me see is that, oh, being a startup founder is like having a disability.

But I think there's also an element in my brand of resilience, too, which is not shying away from it.

I mean, I think there is such a. I think my superpower is this ability to connect with others, because vulnerability is something I explore very, very freely. And I think it comes back to this idea of I am pretty comfortable with what I am and what I'm not.

And the connection piece comes in saying, I need someone to bring this level of skill to me or bring this to the picture, because even if I wanted to, the investment of my time, my energy to do that thing exceeds any, any measure of success, like it's just not realistic to do. And so I think by naming those things and being very honest about them, it also invites others to do the same thing.

So it doesn't become operating from a position of fear. It becomes, I know when I love myself for these ways and like I can celebrate your contributions to this as well.

And so I think it is this love of creating that environment where it is encouraging great work to happen because you understand that what everyone's bringing to the table around you might be slightly different, but it is necessary, especially in these organizations where the ask is so very big.

And so the vulnerability also plays into my resilience because it's fueled me, it's fueled my growth because I'm only able to explore those things or explore connections with other people because I'm self aware enough to know where I shine and where I don't.

And so it's, it's, it's become something I've really, I've really leaned into because it has created this insatiable need to find people in my life or things I didn't know or ways that I can explore solving something that require the collaboration of others or other ideas. And so for me it's, that piece of, it has become very, very crucial for me in particular.

And do you see in your young children, do you see the beginning spark of the same kind of grit?

I think so. I mean, I see it in very different ways in my younger daughter.

She has this boldness, I think, this sense of adventure that I can easily recognize in myself. It's just this, you know, without a thought.

It's a, it's a do first, think later kind of mentality, which I love for her because it's, you know, it doesn't preclude her from trying things. And so in that way it's exciting to see what she'll end up doing because she just approaches things with great gusto.

Whereas on the flip side, my older daughter is a lot like my husband in that highly analytical is someone who really appreciates structure. It works for her.

But what she brings to the table is what I, I, I've contended with my whole life, which is this feeling of anxiety, of, of will I be good enough? How would I get there? How am I perceived? The imposter syndrome I can already see in her.

In spite of her being a very bright kid, she's a very bright, capable kid by, you know, any measure, from what her teachers tell us, her doctors tell us like, she's great, she's a, she's a great, perfectly adaptable, healthy, smart kid. And yet I can see this worry following her around. So she's highly capable but will stop herself before she starts.

And in both of those categories, I can see, you know me in very different ways at different stages of my life. So. Yes, but like if you could combine them together, they would be unstoppable.

But separately they'll have their own mountains to climb because my younger daughter is probably going to fall flat on her face a lot. It's just in the cards for her.

She will have to learn things the hard way, but she'll, she'll accelerate and get better very quickly because she'll allow herself to do that.

Whereas my older daughter, she is going to, it's probably going to be a very, very long time before she'll, before she'll achieve what she wants to achieve because she's so afraid to start to begin with, even though she's just a very, very capable human being.

And so I can see both of those things in both of them and I'm excited for them, but it makes me afraid in very different ways, especially as teenagers. But yeah. Oh.

Oh, I know. Well, Abby, thank you so much. This has been such a great conversation. I really appreciate it.

Same. It's second great conversation. I left our first thinking.

It was just I could have talked to you for probably eight more hours and still found really cool things to explore with you. So I'm just deeply appreciative of this opportunity to explore more of this with you. It's just.

Yeah, it's just such a fun conversation and I am so glad that the wilds of LinkedIn brought us to this stage and, and we were able to have such cool conversations. Thank you.

As am I. And here are your toolkit takeaways. Takeaway 1. Don't let people debt pile up.

Every hire you make without a clear values based framework is like shipping code without tests. It feels fast in the moment, but the debt accumulates and eventually it will crash the system.

Define your non negotiables before you make your very first hire. Put the resume down. Behavioral interviewing isn't optional. Resumes tell you where someone's been.

Behavior based questions tell you how they think, how they handle pressure and whether they can thrive in a startup's ambiguity. Ask for stories, not credentials. Take away three. Culture is either intentional or accidental. And both are real.

The question is, which one is actually running your company right now? Get ruthlessly honest about that before your team gets honest for you.

Now go look at your last three hires and ask yourself whether the culture they experienced when they walked in the door was the one you intended to build or the one that just happened. And that is our show with Abby. The show notes contain useful resources and links.

Please follow and rate [email protected] designingsuccessful startups. Also, please share and like us on your social media channels. This is Jothy Rosenberg saying TTFN Tata for now.