After PMF: People, Customers, Sales by Mathilde Collin

Following on from Paul's talk about some of the ways to think about becoming or what it takes to become or whether you might believe you might become a hundred billion dollar business, I am going to have a conversation with Mathilde, who is in the process of building one of those hundred billion dollar businesses, and she's going to be able to tell us all about that and her company called Front.

So, Mathilde, what batch were you in at YC?

Summer 14.

Summer 14? Wow, already four years ago! So tell us about your, if you would, your journey to being the CEO of Front.

Sure! So in just a few seconds, I think I've always been wanting to start a company, but the main thing is I didn't feel confident enough. Do you think that I would when they build a company? So I was hearing all these people saying, "Oh yeah, I'll start a company," and I was like, "I wish I could say that!"

I just don't feel like I can do it. So instead, what I did is, after I graduated, I joined a startup that was super small doing contract management software, and that's when I discovered the world of software. There is something that went well during this first experience and something that didn't go well.

So what went well is I became very passionate about software in general, and I just felt like the fact that you could build something in a few months that could change how people work — and people spend so much time at work — I felt was super rewarding. So that's what went well.

So, the... you didn't find its contract management sounds painfully boring?

Yes, it's boring! But what was cool about it was that it actually changed how... right?

So did they?

Exactly! And so when I was talking to people, also I was in charge of launching a new product for them, and so when I was talking to people using the product and they were telling me how their day-to-day was much better because they were using the product, it made sense to me, and it's still one thing that drives me today. So that's what was great.

What wasn't great is the culture was terrible, and so I was very unhappy. I also understood how much of a responsibility you had as, you know, a founding team of a company to create an environment where people would be happy to come to work.

So a year after I joined this company, I quit.

Can you elaborate a little bit on what was it about the culture that was bad?

So I think the main thing is there was no transparency, and so then there is no trust, and then there is no engagement from employees. So I can tell you more about how I've built Front and I think what's unique about our culture. But one of the things is how transparent we are, and I don't believe that transparency is good in itself, and that's why you should be transparent. I believe that that's the most efficient way I've found to create engagement at scale.

So if you ask people at Front why are you happy to come to work every day, they will tell you, "I'm happy because I can see the impact of my work," and that's what I care about.

And how do you make sure that people see the impact of their work?

You make sure that everything is transparent — from where you want to go, how you'll go there, what are the goals that need to be achieved, and how their work relates to these goals.

It seems like there's something really fundamental there for the companies that are going to be successful. Paul talked about what it felt like at Google, where everyone knew where they were going and everyone was passionate — everyone believed. And so you had this energy in the company. So I guess somehow it... this is about sharing a vision with the team and having them believe in it and at every step of the way having them be able to see how that vision is being created.

Yeah! So I think there are two things that are incredibly important as early as you are. So one is the vision, and of course, you should know where you're going. And of course, you don't know yet, and that's totally fine. Like, I didn't know four years ago how big Front would be, and I still don't know today, but I think that will just evolve along the way. What you need to have is just what you deeply believe in.

And so what I've always believed in is Front should be a place where people come to work every day and are happy, and our customers should be happier because they use Front, either because, you know, the impact of their work is higher, or because it's an email product that is ten hours in the app every day. But that's what drove me.

And so today our mission is "Work Happier," and I make sure that I explain to people what it means for us, and I think it should be clear to everyone in your company, and you, why you care so deeply about what you're doing.

And it doesn't mean it doesn't need to be, you know, this huge idea, because the truth is I didn't know what Front would be, but I knew that I cared so much about it and people could relate to it. So that's one thing super important.

Yet, I don't think that that's the most important thing. I think the most important thing is discipline, and I think that discipline is actually more important than having a grand vision. And my personal belief — and I am sure that not a lot of people agree with me — is one of the reasons why we've been successful so far is because we've been incredibly disciplined in many, many things.

So, for example, always having one focus and making sure that it's clear to the entire company. So in the early days, we wanted to make sure that we were making something that people wanted, and the way we would track that was, can we generate revenue? And so every single day, everyone in the company would know where our revenue was, and the next day where it was, and the next day track for at least a year. And anything that we would work on was aimed at increasing that revenue.

And I was sending daily emails that became weekly emails; there are still weekly emails telling everyone how we're doing against our core targets, and I think having this discipline of focusing on a few things and making sure that in every presentation you're doing, every email you send — even to investors — to whatever, you show that will be one of the keys to succeed.

So let's back up. Before we dig further into the sort of the unique culture and the success you've had at Front, you left the lousy startup — the lousy company with a lousy culture — and somehow you ended up deciding you're going to start your own thing. How did that transpire? What led you to start your company, to find your co-founder Aloha, and get going with Front?

Yeah, so I think I was very lucky for a few reasons. So one is I met my co-founder. So the story of my co-founder and I is not that, you know, we were best friends or brothers or sisters or whatever; I actually met my co-founder three months before we started the company.

And then we spent so much time together trying to go through every hard conversations that I could think about, like, I don't know, what if I want to fire you? What if you want to fire me? What if you want to sell, and I don't want to... blah, blah, blah. And we were just aligned on most things — actually everything. So that's one thing that led me to start this company with him.

Then we found angel investors.

You knew you wanted to start a company?

Yes, so I knew I wanted to start a company. I quit the software company; I knew I wanted to start a company in the email space because I love software, but I was using email to get work done. I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't using contracts. And so I knew that, and I knew that I needed money to start a company because I had to have a loan for my school, and so I couldn't start a company if I didn't find money yet.

So I was lucky enough to meet with an angel investor in Paris, who committed to giving us...

When you see franchise that sounds really risky, though. You had college debt, right? You just left your job?

Yeah, and I don't know if that's the biggest risk I took or when I moved here with all our employees and their families and they quit their jobs and sold their houses. I've taken many a risk in my life.

Right. Wow! So you decided to jump in headlong. You had to get money, you got an angel investor, you found Loan.

Yes! And the last thing that I think is incredibly important is I found someone who became my husband later on, who believed in me. And I think that it's so important to find someone — whether it's, you know, a mentor, friend, or whoever — who can tell you that you can do it.

And maybe you already know that you can do it, but at least for me, like these four things were equally important. I would have never started this company if someone was not telling me every day, "You can do it."

So you found your future husband and your co-founder—different people, by the way—at about the same time. My husband works at Front, although your husband did work at Front at the time. You met them about the same time?

I met my future husband a few years before, but he was the one telling me, "You can do it." So he was supportive of you quitting your job and jumping in headlong into the startup?

Yes! And he did the same thing at the same time.

Right. So how did you meet?

So in Paris, we met in a startup studio called The Founders, and it was... it was love at first sight.

How did the two of you decide who was going to be CEO?

It was very easy. So basically everything I love, he hates, and everything he loves I hate. So he's the CTO of Front, he loves building the product, but it isn't like talking — what I am doing right now — it isn't like managing as much.

And I think that when I reflect back on Front, the thing that I've been most lucky with is my relationship with my co-founder because we have the most amazing relationship.

And what I mean by that is not that we're super close in a sense that we would hang out together and bow. Like, actually, he's a friend, but he's not like my best friend or my buddy, but we have so much respect for one another, and that's the thing that you need to optimize for. It doesn't matter how well you get along; you just need to be so impressed by whatever your other person or other persons are doing.

You had sort of a unique process to figure that out in the beginning. You sort of grilled each other until you were both sure that you were compatible.

Yeah, so when you began as CEO, what can you talk a little bit about how you split up responsibilities and what the role of CEO was? There's a lot of people here who have similar questions as to what exactly they should be doing as CEO. How did you think about that from the beginning?

So a few things. So my role as a CEO in the early days, I was basically doing everything but being an engineer because I wasn't an engineer. But I was the product manager, the recruiter; I was, for the longest time, the only marketing person. For three years, I was the only sales rep. I was the only customer support rep. I was the only customer success person.

And I guess my job was just to do the job of, like, what would ultimately become our team, and that was really what my goal was: everything but building.

Yeah, that was you!

Exactly!

How has that changed over time? We talked a bit with ALOT Gil about how the role of CEO evolved as a company gets much larger, but it changes a lot even as you go from two people to five people to ten people, right?

Sure! So I think what's super important is I wasn't expecting to hire people to figure out things that I would have not figured out. So it wasn't like I'm struggling with marketing, like I don't know how to generate leads, so I need to hire someone better than me.

So the way I was thinking about it is there are a few things that I feel are scalable. So, for example, who would have leads that would sign up to Front? I would call them and I would like, "Do you understand how to use Front? Here is what Front is."

What's your process?

When I started to think that another person could do that and could do it better than me because the person would be more skilled, then that's when I hired people.

So at every step of the way, I hired people better than me, but once I had figured out what roughly their job would be, the mistake I've done in the early days was I've not figured out something and I hoped that someone would figure it out for me.

The truth is, if with all the knowledge I have about the company, I can't figure out something, I think it's very rare that someone would come and figure it out. So that's something that I learned in the early days.

So you can't count on someone else to have the answers, right? You don't have them?

Yeah, for sure! And Steve today, like even today, we are 110 people now, and I'm not hiring people to figure out things that I've not figured out because I think it's incredibly hard.

I'm here to hire people that will scale what's kind of working. So that's what happened. So I hired people that were better than me on seeing that I had figured out. And then once I had everyone, I hired heads of functions.

And then my job now is to find the head of every function and to make them work together. So that's how my job has evolved.

So it sounds like from the very beginning, though, hiring was foremost in your mind.

Yes! So one funny thing is, anytime—so I was in the Summer 14 batch—and so every week we had a speaker, and every time the speaker was talking about hiring, that's the moment I was on my phone because I was like, you know, I don't care, hiring is a long time from now!

And that's probably a big mistake I've done because then you understand that hiring is the key. If you fail on that, your company will fail. So you should listen and just take notes and read the notes later on.

So, this I can tell you one piece of advice that I got from Patrick Collison, the CEO of Stripe, that I thought was super insightful. They said in the early days, every time you hire someone, just think about whether you want 10 times this person, because the truth is this person will hire people like them.

So I'm interviewing you and I'm like, "Do I want 10 Jeffs in this team?"

Yeah, so if the answer is, you know, maybe I do. So if the answer is yes, then you know I can hire you. If the answer is no, the bar should be as high as that, and I think that was a good piece of advice that I received from the very beginning.

It seems like Front has a strong specific culture.

Yes! Did you pay attention to that as you were hiring from the beginning? And how did you implement that? How did you think about it?

Yes! I think very early on, I was very deliberate about it. It was what we call today our values, but I basically know who I think I would work well with and who I wouldn't work well with.

And that's the truth! Like, our values are just extensions of who we are as co-founders. And so, you know, some of our values are low ego and high standards, care and collaboration, and the last one is transparency.

And I just believe that I'm incredibly demanding, and that's why high standards is part of our value, and I don't want to hire anyone that doesn't have these standards. I'm also, I think, very low ego.

Like, it doesn't mean I don't have an ego, but when I make a decision, I think about Front first, and I think about our employees first, and I think about myself after.

And I think that just putting words on what we care about as co-founders and then making sure that you're assessing that during your interview process is what matters.

It's not useful to display them on a wall and to explain them and all of that in the early days, but at least being just self-aware is what will help you hire the right people.

And it does kind of speak to the fact that you are going to play an important role in hiring everybody in the beginning.

Yeah! And I kept interviewing everyone until like employee number 80 or something.

Did you ever find yourself in a position of needing or wanting or having to compromise on those values? Or did the values always take precedent?

Like, there is someone who maybe didn't quite match the values but was like the perfect fit for the designer job.

So, no. We'd never hired someone that didn't match our values, or if we did, then we let go of the person after, which is worse!

Yeah, it never worked. And I think it's incredibly important in a company that it's festering.

Like, you think, for example, I've been willing to hire a head of finance for I don't know how long — six months, and it's so important! Like, we don't have any finance person at Front.

And we, I don't know, we're 110 people, we've raised 80 million, and I don't know what I'm doing because I've never done any finance work before! But I've never found someone that I was incredibly excited about that had both the skills and would match our values. So I'm not hiring anyone.

And I think being very disciplined about not hiring even if you desperately need this person is important.

I want to move on to product, but before we do that, I'm just wondering if you were going to talk to relatively new startup founders or people with young companies like most of the companies in startup school, is there specific advice you'd give about creating a culture of success, the kind of culture you have at Front for them?

So I think my biggest advice would be, one, to be incredibly demanding.

So I just feel like in the early days, if you have someone that's not working out, being very tough and letting this person go? I think that's a mistake I've seen because, you know, if you have a team of five and one person is not working out and you kind of know — and you always know — and you're not making this tough decision, that has an impact on your entire team.

It's easy to say, hard to do, and I can tell you how we've done it. I think that's super important.

I think transparency is just so important in the early days, and even at scale. But so making sure that everyone in your company knows everything — like there is no reason why you should hide anything, maybe except for, I don't know, salaries.

So I was going to ask, well, when you say transparency—people throw that word out a lot—how do you, what, in actual practice, does that mean for you at Front?

So it means that everyone knows what...

Icon?

So, few things! When I think there is bad transparency and good transparency, real transparency is everything that you can share that will help people do their job better and help answer questions they have — that transparency will raise more questions and create more problems than you need.

And so for example, like sharing salaries, like we can have a debate about that, but I think it raises more questions than it actually solves problems. But everything else, so everyone knows our revenue, or churn, every email about, I don't know, leads coming in and telling us what they want, customers complaining about this or being happy about that, every NPS score — everything is public.

We run away the amount of cash we have in the bank account. Every board meeting that we do, we publish the board deck, and then I do hands-on, and I share what the board said, or I answer questions on the board deck.

Every, I don't know, I share just everything that's business-related and also how I feel! Like I'm happy to say I'm extremely happy about that and I'm extremely unhappy about that! And everyone in the company ends up knowing that!

And they know that, and I think it's good because then if you really want people to work on these things that are broken, there is no point in hiding what's broken.

And there is always this human feeling of, I will not share because, you know, they will be worried; I'm gonna tell them that that's broken. And some people join two days ago, and they're gonna know that it's broken, but that's fine because what you gain is the fact that they will all work on the problems, and that's better than avoiding the question.

And it feels like people stay aligned and moving in the same direction.

Yes! And I mean, you know that. But I think Front is like, at least one thing — there are lots of things that, you know, we struggle with — but one thing that we've done, I think, very well is our retention of employees.

So people are super happy, our NPS is 87, which is super high. If you look at Glassdoor, we only have five-star reviews. If you look at our attrition, no one has... there are just two people that have left Front ever, and it was one to go back to school and one to join the company of their best friend.

So I think we've done a good job, and I believe that we've done a good job because of this engagement that we've created thanks to this transparency.

We were talking earlier about one great sign for companies, their product — is having really high retention. But likewise, I guess having really high retention of your employees is a pretty fantastic sign for our company!

Yeah! And it's important because so much knowledge is gathered institutionally, right? And you — every time you—especially if you lose someone good—you lose so much money! So much!

So you guys are a really interesting case because you're an enterprise company that started with a handful of customers — well, zero — eventually a handful and then you've scaled to thousands. Can you talk about the early days of figuring out that you had product market fit and then a little bit about the evolution to, you know, going from, you know, we were just talking about ten or a hundred people who love you to too many more?

Yeah! So I would say a few things. So first thing is, I remember when I arrived here in YC four years ago, Kevin Hale came to me and was like, "What's your company?" And I said, "It's Front." And then he was like, "Oh, so cool! I think it's one of the coolest companies from this batch." And then I was sure that he was talking about another company!

So, as any true founder, I just... I was sitting there confused about — oh, you must be confusing me with another company. It's just like, I wasn't confident!

Another example is my batch