September 20, 2024 • 44 mins
Building a robust team culture and scaling tech companies internationally is no easy task.
Learn from Matt's inspiring journey from his early days at Salesforce to impactful roles at LinkedIn, Slack, and now Rippling. We promise you'll gain invaluable insights into the importance of passion, perseverance, and smart risk-taking in the fast-paced world of technology and cloud computing.
Matt shares practical advice on navigating career opportunities in tech, offering a behind-the-scenes look at his work with LinkedIn's Sales Navigator product in Asia and his strategic move back to the U.S. Discover how he evaluates emerging companies and trends, the significance of leveraging a strong network, and why understanding company culture is crucial. Matt’s stories from Salesforce, Slack, and LinkedIn emphasize the importance of coachability and continuous learning in leadership roles, shaping his current contributions at Rippling.
Dive into effective hiring strategies for startup growth and the complexities of building culture in a hybrid workforce with Matt's expert guidance. He recounts success stories of hires from non-traditional backgrounds and addresses the challenge of hiring in conservative markets. Additionally, explore the nuances of international expansion, from conducting thorough market research to leveraging local networks and advisors. This episode is a goldmine for anyone aiming to succeed in the dynamic tech industry, offering a comprehensive guide on building high-performing teams and expanding globally.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm wearing long sleeves because to cover up the
battle scars, there's plenty ofthem.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You pick Salesforce, linkedin, slack, rippling all
incredible organizations in theinfancy Like how did you, how
did you nail that every singletime Joining us to shed light on
this is.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Matt Loop by Matt Loop.
Matt Loop.
Matt Loop from HR and Workspecialist Rippling Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Loop, the tech titan disrupting the SaaS industry
landscape for the last twodecades.
Right now in growth mode and inthis you know, first 12 months
we've gone zero to roughly 50staff.
We don't have the localplaybook, we don't have the
massive customer base.
We're learning every day.
Are you going to be someone whorolls up their sleeves and says
(00:47):
I'm going to build?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Hey guys, as many of you know, when you're starting a
new project, you're not alwaysgoing to get it right every
single time.
With our interview with MattLoop, we had some amazing
content, but unfortunately ouraudio card got corrupted.
For that reason, the audio isnot quite as good as it should
be, but please do listen anyway,because there are some amazing
nuggets and an incredible story.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
In diving into your history, what I noticed is that
you're not just a VP of sales,you are a builder.
You have successfully builtsome incredible brands and I
know how difficult it is my timein building a couple of
businesses in the APAC market.
There's some highs and lows,there's some tears, there's some
(01:32):
late nights and there's somelessons and we kind of deal on
those mistakes that we make andthe lessons that we learn and we
take them on to the next rolesthat we have and I'm super
excited to introduce you andhave a conversation around.
What are some of those battlescars that you had and earned
along the way and how has thatimpacted you to date?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm wearing long sleeves because to cover up the
battle scars, there's plenty ofthem.
I've been blessed withoutquestion 20 years in an exciting
industry of technology, largelyall around cloud computing,
software as a service.
I got my start with Salesforcekind of the pioneer of this
(02:19):
whole space, the disruptor ofthe on-premise software world,
the disruptor of the on-premisesoftware world and I joined them
.
Everyone knows the brand,certainly today, 80,000 or so
employees and certainly theleader and the instigator of
that whole cloud computingmovement.
But I joined it.
It was 2003.
(02:39):
It was 250 employees, it wasprivate and it was very much
unknown, certainly outside ofthe US.
There were incredible peoplethere in early days, not just
Mark but a variety of otherpeople who have since gone on to
start incredible companies.
But I was very fortunate tojoin there to, I think, learn
(03:04):
what a great sales culture lookslike, one that invests in all
of their employees and a massivebeneficiary of that, one who's
a disruptor and scaling rapidly,certainly a byproduct of the
growth at all costs world.
(03:25):
That was Salesforce and some ofthe other companies, although
that's hugely tapered back.
In my most recent role it wasRichard Terry Loy who ran Zuara,
(03:46):
who originally hired me, aaronRoss, who wrote the Bible around
predictable revenue that everySaaS company has used to build
their outbound motion.
To Mike Derrison, who ran allof the sales solutions business
at LinkedIn.
To Bob Fratty, cro of Slack.
To Aaron Katz, who is the CROof Elastic, now the CEO of
(04:08):
ClickHouse, and then, of course,to where I am today, and Matt
Plank, the CRO of Rippling.
The CVs of them are insane andthey've been incredibly
supportive of me as I kind oftry to do the international
scale up for a US based companyin Australia or broadly Asia.
(04:31):
I've learned so much from themand hundreds of other incredible
execs that have worked at thosecompanies.
So, look, I've always been partof growth companies.
I think I've certainlyfine-tuned what I love and
(04:52):
what's important to me.
It started with Salesforce andI think it gave me an
understanding of I want adisruptor, I want someone who's
going to make a meaningfulimpact in the space that they're
in.
I want to be part of growth.
I want to be part of not justgrowing a revenue number, but
growing a culture, a teambuilding, something special.
(05:14):
I think that all probably goesback to my early days of being a
passionate athlete.
Even when I was 13 or 14 yearsold, I coached the younger girls
club team that was in my soccerclub team and I just always
(05:35):
loved whether I was playing oreven coaching at a young age
bringing together a group ofpeople towards a common goal,
whether that's win achampionship or win the
tournament, putting in the hardwork, building trust and respect
amongst your team members andjust going for it.
(05:58):
And I think I try to apply alot of those principles in what
I'm doing in the office day today.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
I can relate to that sense ofbuilding team camaraderie and
really creating a communitywithin your own business, but
also for the clients that youserve as well.
I want to pick up on somethingthat you mentioned that you love
working for disruptiveorganizations or organizations
that are in that disruptive mode, but you've picked Salesforce,
linkedin, slack, ripley allincredible organizations in the
(06:30):
infancy like how did you, howdid you nail that every single
time?
Because they've been disruptorsin their space.
I wish you look for look.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I do believe that you create your own luck.
My luck, perhaps, wasn created.
I was on a wine bus in Napa andAaron Katz, who was an employee
at Salesforce at the time, knewI was unhappy in the role that
I was in at the moment.
He said you need to come overand look into Salesforce.
(07:02):
And so, with a few introductions, I was able to get in, have an
interview, do well and get arole.
So that was really thelaunchpad, I guess, to get in
the door.
I think I always keep tabs andI'm looking for emerging
companies and trends, whetherit's myself using them to do my
(07:27):
job better or make my lifebetter and that kind of plays
into LinkedIn.
I'm member number like 650,000.
I don't know the exact number,but it's in the first million
and I think there are a billionmembers now.
But when that came out I wasone of the first to jump on and
you know LinkedIn gets improvedas the network grows.
(07:50):
So this was in its infancy.
But the whole concept of whatit was all about kind of
building and developing yourprofessional brand, being able
to leverage relationships whereyou have them to get warm
introductions I just bought intothat.
And in my you know, my firstdecade at Salesforce, linkedin
became a part of how I sold.
(08:12):
You know, if we were going intoearly customers like Seek in
Australia, one of the earlyadopters of Salesforce, I would
go on and would see like isthere someone that I could talk
to to perhaps get the meetingthat we're struggling to get
right now?
So I was one of the earlyadopters of LinkedIn and
(08:32):
serendipitously, uh, anopportunity came up when they
launched their sales navigatorproduct to do so, to have
someone on the ground in Asia tolead that.
And so there was no betterperson for me at that.
No better person, hopefully,than me having done the
Salesforce, built 10 years ofconnections with sales leaders
(08:55):
in Australia and being a massiveproponent myself of the whole
kind of social selling, modernselling movement and being just
a linkedin fanboy, that made mylife at salesforce better, and
so I made that jump, uh and andwent to linkedin.
I had a couple of years buildingup in asia and then an
(09:19):
opportunity to move back to theus, little arm twisting of my
australian wife, to go back andspend a little time with my
family but also, from aprofessional perspective,
hopefully have the opportunityto lead a North American
business, perhaps somethingslightly bigger in scope than
what was afforded to me withinLinkedIn in Australia.
(09:39):
And so we moved back from 2015to 2019.
We loved it Incredible time forfour, four and a half years in
North America, but then ourdaughter was going to start
kindergarten.
We always knew that there was atimeline for us to come back to
where we knew we were going toestablish roots and be close to
(10:00):
our family here and there wasn'ta good opportunity with
LinkedIn back in Asia.
So I thought I started thinkingabout again the companies that
were disruptors.
Who was doing somethinginteresting to me and making my
life better Now at the time?
(10:20):
Now at the time I wasn't a userof Slack, but I knew I hated
email.
Both LinkedIn and Salesforcehad the email-centric
organizations when I was thereand I knew something could help
organize information andcommunicate better.
And so I got you know nine to12 months ahead of my known move
(10:43):
back to Australia.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Got you know nine to twelve months ahead of my known
move back to australia startedreconnecting with bob and cro
and seeing a little bit of anopportunity to help expand in
asia, and so that happened andis there some sort of evaluation
that you go through when you'relooking at these next companies
of what's going to be the nextbig winner or a good horse to
bet on that?
You look at the financials, theleadership team, like where
they are geographically growthyear to year.
(11:07):
What are the things that youlook at?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, all the above.
I think again I'm fortunatehaving the network I've been in
for 20 years so many people fromSalesforce and LinkedIn and now
Slack.
My former colleagues have goneon and are running most of the
great companies that you want tobe at now or they're certainly
in senior positions, so Iusually have an insider to
(11:30):
understand what's going on there, what's the business like, what
are their ambitions for Asiaand see if it aligns with kind
of what I'm looking for.
It's exactly what happened withRipple.
You know Two former colleaguesare senior leaders in our North
American business.
They reached out to me knowing15 plus years in the Australian
(11:54):
market.
They were launching theirpayroll product and they just
wanted perspective ongo-to-market here, what's
different, how should they thinkabout setting it up, and I
jumped on the phone, learned alittle bit more about the
opportunity.
I certainly knew the financialsand a bit about Rippling and
you know it was, I think, theright time in my career to make
it from Slack and Salesforce.
(12:15):
And then I went and meteveryone else.
I met with our COO, mattMcInnes, with Matt Plank, my
boss, and a number of otherpeople to get a feel for culture
to understand what they werelooking to do as they
internationalize the business,to ensure it aligns with what I
want to do and it does.
It was build something that'struly transformational, that is
(12:40):
going to be a legacy typecompany that is a disruptor in
the space, where you could argue, the incumbents and the ones
that have been leading in ourspace perhaps are right for
disruption.
And so it's ticked a lot ofboxes and actually today is my
year anniversary at Rippling.
(13:01):
I'm sure I'll do a post aboutit, but it's been an incredible
12 months.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Incredible, incredible 12 months, and I mean
when I look at the success andthe growth that you've had and
the brand that's already beenbuilt in.
Australia like it's prettyspectacular to go from zero to
where you are today.
I guess that brings me back toa question around being a
student of the game beingcoachable.
That's something with Harvardwas that for hiring salespeople
is their coachability.
But I think that that needs tocontinue through leadership as
(13:27):
well, because the more you learn, the more you apply those
lessons, the quicker you can dothis.
The second, the third, thefourth time, when you reflect
back on your time in Salesforceor Slack, linkedin, are there
any gotchas?
Are there any things?
Where you go, I messed up andI'm going to make sure that I do
things differently and that'sgoing to excite my way to go to
(13:48):
market.
I messed up all the time.
Anything significant thatreally pulled you back and you
thought at the time?
I'm going to make sure I neverlet that happen again.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Good question.
So I'd say there's a few thingsthat perhaps I've implemented
here at Rippling and I think inprevious lives I could have done
a better job of it and I thinkhave done a better job of it and
(14:33):
I think, knock on wood, I'mdoing a better job now.
Number one is interviewing andmaking sure that you're
attracting great talent.
I'd say, earlier in my career,without the experience of hiring
great people, I've probablyhired lookalikes, people that I
just had things in common withand didn't seek diversity.
(14:57):
I don't think I probablyfocused on the right attributes
and values to ensure thatthey're an appropriate fit for
what we're trying to accomplish,for what we're trying to
accomplish, and I think I'veimproved upon that, diversity
being a big one.
If I look at any role we'rehiring now and my recruiter will
(15:20):
attest I won't really engageunless there's a diverse
candidate slate.
I think I've gotten better atunderstanding and having a
different risk, tolerance fordifferent roles, taking
intelligent risks in order tobring in diversity to the
organization.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Can you give an example of an intelligent risk
that you take today?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I mean I'll give two examples and I'll name them on
the podcast.
And I'll name them on thepodcast, hopefully they watch,
because they're both justincredible and I'm fine.
I guess it's too right becauseI definitely question myself and
I think hiring these two peopleI learned a ton about how I
need to perhaps think outsidethe square and really assess on
(16:08):
skill but also will and how tobest do that interview process.
So Anne, who was at BD at BakerMcKenzie, a law firm, who came
into interview for a juniorselling role at LinkedIn and you
know on paper it's not the fit.
She doesn't come from X numberof companies that we typically
(16:31):
hire from and law firm you knowlimited experience in selling
technology.
Why would we bring her in?
And you know you could tell shecame in to deliver the
presentation, her interviews andthen finally the panel.
In everything she was soprepared.
You could tell her passion wasjust through the roof for
(16:54):
wanting to be here.
I remember asking her like howdid you prepare?
Because it's very obvious shehadn't.
The answer was you know I didthis with my husband a third of
the three times I went throughit.
He wants me to not get the jobhere times I went through it.
(17:15):
He wants me to not get the jobhere and uh, anyways, we hired
her, you know, and fast forwardto where she is now.
I mean she was a top performerpretty much every year I think
she's got a hundred or so peoplethat roll up to her at
microsoft.
Incredible, um, human being,you know, did her job
unbelievably well but was theright person in scale-up mode.
That just sets such a highstandard for how you show up
(17:35):
every day, for how you treatyour colleagues, for how you
treat employees, our customers,and that is contagious.
If you get, especially in theearly hires, if you get those
types of people, you get thatright, the skill and the will,
the culture, fit and theaptitude.
(17:56):
Life is just wonderful.
The other one was Jesse.
You know he was we were doing apilot at Staples furniture
supplier.
He was a sales rep who was kindof an advocate for getting
LinkedIn in there to help theirsales process.
And I remember you know my repcoming back and saying you got
(18:19):
to meet this guy.
He's dying to get in here.
I said really yeah, furnituresales guy.
And again came in and justabsolutely blew us away.
The professionalism was justoff the charts, the preparation,
the precision.
It was incredible.
(18:39):
He was clearly a student of thegame and still is to this day.
I remember fast forward threeor four years later at the sales
kickoff 4,000 plus people inLas Vegas, and he's one of three
people celebrated as AE of theyear.
So I think I've gotten muchbetter at looking beyond the CV,
(19:02):
truly asking the rightquestions to understand who
these people are, what theirdrivers are, the values that
they live their life by, as wellas the aptitude to do the role
effectively.
I love that response.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
SaaS recruitment business that is focused on
startup and scale-up SaaSbusinesses and helping them
build their go-to-market teamsglobally, and our unique value
proposition is that we're allex-SaaS professionals ourselves.
So we've all been in thetrenches, we've all built those
sales teams ourselves and one ofthe challenges that I faced
(19:47):
early on in this new careerpivot is a lot of hiring
managers, particularly in aconservative market, is a lot of
hiring managers, particularlyin a conservative market, if we
can call it that, which is anemployer's market rather than an
employee's market is they'relooking for that paper-perfect
candidate and they're looking atthe CV and they're
disqualifying so many peoplebecause they're not
paper-perfect.
But I liken it a little bit tosomeone going on a date in the
(20:11):
old days.
You may want to begin to settledown with someone.
You've got your tick box overall of these things.
You may tick all those boxes,but you don't have that
compatibility, you don't havethat cultural fit or that
personality click and you're notgoing to be the right person
for the business.
So I really like the fact thatyou touched on looking beyond
the CV.
So I really liked the fact thatyou touched on looking beyond
(20:32):
the CV.
It's a nice pivot to somethingI really wanted to understand is
you mentioned skill and will aspart of your interview process
there.
What are some of the othercharacteristics that you look
for in a founding team?
So, when you're looking to gowritten here, what are the
(21:00):
traits and characteristics ofthat founding team that I want
to then take that into um theevolution of your hiring
strategy, because I think thatyou've got a founding team
strategy and I also think thatthe team that gets you from zero
to one perhaps isn't isn't allthe time going to be the team
that gets you from one to tenand ten to a hundred.
So how do you think aboutgetting that high performing
sales team to get you to whereyou're going to today and then
at what point you begin to toyears?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
in terms of having to bring in.
I hope that that theory iswrong, like I hope that I can
hire people that can scale withus.
And that's always something I'mkind of probing and testing for
, and I think the best thing isgrowth mindset.
How do you test for that, likeunderstand how people are trying
(21:40):
to self-improve, what are theirgaps or what are areas that
they know self-aware or feedbackprovided that they can improve
upon, and what are they doing toimprove?
You know, is it throughmentorship?
Is it through coursework?
Is it constantly reading?
You know what is their attitudetowards growth Because, like
(22:03):
you said, I'm probably not goingto get all the boxes ticked on
everyone.
The dream candidate is rare or,if not altogether, doesn't
exist.
So, for the things that mightnot all be there, whether it's
industry knowledge or productknowledge or selling to a
certain persona is this persongoing to adapt and grow into
(22:26):
that?
Do they have just kind of arabid appetite to grow and
improve?
And so I think that'sabsolutely something that I'm
looking for.
I think right now in growthmode and in this first 12 months
, we've gone zero to roughly 50staff.
We don't have the local playbooks, we don't have the massive
(22:47):
customer base.
We don't.
We're learning every day andyou have to be okay and actually
thrive in that environment.
Are you going to be someone whorolls up their sleeves and says
I'm going to build our playbookto sell to retail organizations
based on what I'm doing rightnow with this company?
(23:07):
Are you going to becollaborative and share that?
Are you going to just besomeone who is a wealth of
knowledge and assisting andsupporting their team members?
So I think that's certainlyimportant.
Resilience I think it getstalked about a lot, particularly
(23:28):
when it's crappy macroeconomicconditions, a lot of technology,
sales companies doing it toughright now.
But I think we've been veryupfront and I think I've gotten
better at this in each job Likethis is what it is and this is
what it's not.
I will tell you what is workingand what's good.
(23:49):
The upside, I will be veryhonest and is what it's not.
I will tell you what is workingand what's good.
The upside I will be veryhonest and say what it's not, to
make sure that you don't wasteyour time and we don't waste
ours and we don't get the fitwrong.
And resilience right now isabsolutely one.
It is hard to build period Likeyou don't have all the
(24:11):
resources that you get in abigger company.
Um, you're constantly changingand pivoting, and so I think
that's something that I I'd callout very much to candidates as
well.
Any tests that need to beprocessed, um difficult.
I think you can ask forexamples of that.
I think you can ask forexamples of that.
(24:32):
I think you can ask for history.
I think you can look at wherethey've been and be knowing
those organizations what's realand what's perhaps not.
But I also just think radicaltransparency or almost
disqualifying is a good thing todo.
(24:53):
Like, if there are skeletons inthe closet or if there are
things that are challenging,there's no point at trying to
hide that and kind of smoke andmirrors.
What's happening in thebusiness?
It's a battle for talent.
It's very tough.
What's happening in thebusiness?
It's a battle for talent.
It's very tough.
Like there could be thisinclination to lie about what
(25:15):
it's like on a day-to-day toattract someone, but three
months down the road, one of youis going to be kicking
themselves.
Right, you hired the wrongperson who isn't the right fit
for where we are and what weprovide, or you know the
employee saying the same.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Hybrid work.
That's something which hasreally changed and evolved in
the last two, three years sinceAlvin.
There's a lot of talk aboutfrom both sides.
We're a hybrid workforce.
Candidates will say what's thework-from-home policy?
But what is your perspective onhybrid work and how do you get
(25:57):
the most productivity out ofyour workforce?
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You know this new life that I'm looking at.
I think it's early days onflexible work, whatever your
perspective might be on it.
I am 17-ish years of in theoffice every day.
Salesforce, I was in every day.
Linkedin, I was in every day.
I joined Slack and then, acouple months later, COVID hit
(26:26):
and I happen to be providing aplatform that enables remote
work.
So it was convenient andserendipitous.
So I'm still learning myself.
I love being in the office.
I was, I think, productive athome.
We're a hybrid workforce rightnow, just full transparency.
(26:48):
We're three days in the office,two days at home.
We're a hybrid workforce rightnow, just full transparency.
We're three days in the office,two days at home.
And it's being conscious,thoughtful about how to best
maximize those days.
So I'll do a lot of just catchup admin work at home.
I'll do a lot of myinternational Zoom meetings to
(27:08):
you know, namely in the US.
When I'm at home and the daysI'm in office I try to
prioritize my one-on-ones that Ihave regularly with my local
team, try to prioritize customermeetings or group problem
solving when we can cometogether in person.
And I think we can better workthan trying to do it remotely.
I think we got really good atSlack Just one, I guess, like
(27:32):
tip that they had.
That I appreciated we had nointernal meetings on Friday, so
we just eliminated that and weconstantly scrutinized what.
Where is there fat in ourcalendar that we can trim?
Like, what are the things thatare just meetings that are
pointless?
We can give back selling timeto the reps.
(27:52):
We can minimize and allowpeople to, you know, go have a
longer lunch or focus onwellbeing.
But I think that's somethingthat I try to do as well Even
now at Rippling, like whatmeetings don't need to happen?
What work can be doneasynchronously In Slack?
It can be an update.
You used to say could thismeeting have been an email?
(28:13):
I say, could this meeting havebeen a Slack post?
But this is an ongoing battlethat employees and employers are
waging.
Right now.
It's very topical in theheadlines in Australian press.
There are organizations sayingif you want a kind of cruisy job
(28:41):
, startup world is not for you.
You know four day work weeksand you know breaking early.
You can't do that in a startupenvironment, and they're right.
It's very difficult to do whenyou're trying to build a high
performance and generationalcompany when you have big
(29:01):
ambition and aspirations as towhat you want that organization
to be.
And employees are equally righttoo, and employees are equally
right too.
We all kind of came out ofCOVID, I think, with a bigger
focus around well-being andwork-life balance.
I think that that's fantasticand I'm a proponent of that, and
(29:25):
employees absolutely have theability and right now to say you
know what?
I only do want to work fourdays a week, and that's
important to me.
They might struggle to find aton of companies out there.
In fact, we did research andsaid only less than 25% of
companies are actually going toimport that any time in the next
(29:45):
12 months.
They're going to struggle tofind perhaps companies that are
willing to take that on my timeand data.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
we build a high performing sales team and
culture, and it absolutely wasnot a nine to five operation.
They're the top performers, itwas correlation.
Top performers, funnily enough,put in a lot more work than the
lowest performers.
Sometimes they'd be in at sixor seven o'clock in the morning.
They'd be staying until 7o'clock, 8 o'clock in the
evening, because they reallybelieved in building something.
Building something not just forthe business but for themselves
(30:18):
as well.
And that's a piece which I, onreflection, I think is tricky
when you've got theseconflicting forces saying work
from home, you need to work hard.
But for me, one of the powerfulparts of building a team is
creating a culture and a senseof achievement, a sense of
(30:39):
purpose bigger than the personthemselves.
And that way they're coming notjust to do a job, they're
coming to be a part of something, to build something for
themselves for their team.
Yeah, which is it comes intoculture.
It's like, how do you createthat sort of I mean, do you
agree with that sort of premiseand what can you if so or if not
?
Like, what are the importantpieces that come into culture
(31:01):
that give you that platform tocreate that when you're working
with other people?
I think that for us, forRippling, where we are, in
particular in Australia.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Having the three days in office, I think, is critical
.
I think it is much harder toestablish an employee brand and
a culture amongst a bunch of newstarters to onboard and become
enabled effectively if you'reall at home.
So, without question, you knowwe all cram into our small
(31:37):
office.
We had visitors last week fromthe States who loved it, like
they said oh, this feels likethe scrappy startup days that
they craved and loved being partof.
You know, we all come togetherin there for a couple days a
week and I think that's largelywhat happens.
We all get better being aroundone another.
We are constantly learning.
(32:00):
We've got a very broad androbust platform, so there's
always something to pick up fromone of our technical product
experts or from a seller whojust had an engagement around a
particular product.
So I think that for me,building culture still happens
(32:23):
best in person.
Now I will say that I thinkthere's probably certain roles
that can have more flexibilityand be remote more often, like
if a recruiter is an example,his job is to be, on the phone
eight or nine hours a day tocandidates the whole time.
Do they need to be in the officeJust locked in a phone booth or
(32:48):
in a meeting room to haveprivate conversations with
candidates who don't want toknow that they're speaking to
you?
I don't know.
There's certain other rolesthat I think could be remote and
maybe we'll grow and evolve tothat and allow that flexibility.
(33:08):
But for us right now it it hasworked really well for us to be
those three days in person andthen the two days where I can
just plow through, perhapswithout any distraction, with a
couple hours saved, and commutetime.
Um, all the busy work that Ineed to do to do my job well I
think what I'm taking away fromthis as well is it's about being
(33:31):
intentional.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's not just a hybrid.
I was intentional in actuallyputting two to three days I
think everyone there togetherwith the intention of building
culture, enablements,camaraderie, and then you do get
a true investment for us aswell.
Best of both worlds.
Yeah, ripley is operating anddisrupting the HR tech space.
It's an up-and-coming, emergingindustry and, right, you said
(33:57):
you picked another winner by thelooks of things.
And how is Ripley solving a lotof the HR challenges for
disparate organizations that arelocated all over the world?
With international expansion,what problems are you and the
organization solving?
Speaker 1 (34:14):
There's a ton.
So there are a ton ofchallenges that are facing
Australian employers right now.
A lot of them are front pagenews.
You've got wage theft and 59%of companies in the last two
years have had some sort ofpayroll error, so you're more
(34:39):
likely to have been paidincorrectly than correctly in
the last two years.
This is largely because they'reusing multiple systems in order
to do that, or they're usinglegacy systems that order to do
that, or they're using legacysystems that require a lot of
manual intervention.
So I think on the payroll side,it's about automating, removing
(34:59):
the manual process that sitswith payroll professionals and
making their life easy.
You can take away some of themundane tasks and kind of grind
the work that they have to prepthe bank file at the end of each
month.
That's just kind of allautomagically done for you.
Then I think we can help reducethe errors.
(35:21):
If you're not having to usefive different systems to
combine perhaps multiplecountries where you need to pay
employees and bring that intoone.
That makes life easy.
You've got gender pay gap andso now everyone's required to
report those.
Every company that's.
(35:41):
Let's see over 50 employees, Ibelieve, or 100 need to start
reporting that this year and Ithink that number drops to 15
for next year.
So how can we provide the dataand insights for companies to
have all of that handy and evenhave a recipe ready to go report
that can be sent directly tothe government as part of the
(36:04):
requirement?
It's devices and it's deviceslike part of being an employee
is you often get corporate ITand something that is given to
you by the company to do yourjob.
You know, when I started I hada pile of 10 laptops in my home
office that I had to likemanually take to someone at a
pub or meet before we enteroffice or ship it to them.
(36:27):
We can do all that.
We can manage all of yourinventory.
We can ship all those out.
When you hire a new starter,that's pre-configured with all
the apps that they need to dotheir job Great fix capabilities
.
If something goes wrong, wegive you the box to ship it back
and so that's all taken care of.
There's constantly changing IRreform.
(36:47):
We've got the right todisconnect, which comes out in
August.
There's constantly changing IRreform.
We've got the right todisconnect, which comes out in
August.
But there are constantlychanging minimum wage rates and
modern award updates and all ofthese things often require going
into a system and manuallyadjusting that.
So how can we automate that andmake sure that those things are
(37:09):
happening in the background andtake that burden off an
organization?
In general, if you think aboutan employee and how they work
and the tools that they need todo their not to do their job,
not their productivity tools but, as an employee, the systems I
(37:29):
need to log into to get all thethings I need my pay,
performance and all of that it'susually tens of systems and
Ripple is really trying to befocused on the employee data
record at the center ofeverything and building a
platform with all of theapplications that would touch an
employee's experience all inone place, with workflow, with
(37:53):
analytics, with ai, all thosethings kind of baked in to the
underpinning platform.
So it's a big, ambitious plan.
We're also looking to tackleinternational which is why I
have a job, thankfully and todeliver payroll in a number of
countries, provide paymentoptions in hundreds of countries
(38:14):
and really do this at a scalethat no other company before us
has done.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Great Matt.
I also want to ask anotherquestion.
This is my preparation for 2025.
Let's just say that we're intough times.
It's probably going to bepretty tough in the Aussie
market and the West market forthe next six months or so.
But as SaaS businesses begin tolook at expansions, they begin
(38:40):
to look at going beyond theirheadquarter, whether that's in
Australia, north America, europe.
What are some of the strategiesthat you can give counsel on
when it comes to deployingculture, to overcoming legal
obligations, to looking atlogistical issues, to making
sure that you take that culture,that DNA of the headquartered
(39:04):
organization and deploy thatregionally?
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, a boring answer is that Rippling can help a lot
of companies in going andsetting up legal entities and
paying employees in othercountries.
So we're here to support onthat.
Look, I've done it, coming thisway US to Australia.
But here's what I would say,especially when we're talking
(39:29):
about Australian startups, Ican't say that there's been a
ton of wildly successful Aussiestartups that have made the leap
into the US.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It's a very difficult market.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
It's a big one.
It's probably the one that's oneveryone's mind.
Atlassian's over there, canva'strying to go and build a market
over there.
You know companies Aconex is anexample, I think successfully
made the leap there before theysold to Oracle.
There's a few that spring tomind, but it's difficult.
I know there's a few that Iadvise to and spend a lot of
(40:07):
time with.
I think they're doing itcorrectly.
So if you're perhaps speaking toaussie startups who might be
considering this, first andforemost, should you be doing
like, is now the time to take onthe behemoth task of going to
the us or going to europe?
Uh, that is extremely cost and,uh, time, expensive.
(40:33):
Uh, exercise to do it can.
It's one of those moments whereit can, like, make or break a
company if you don't get itright.
And so, um, amidst this time ofpotential scale and you got
some dollars to invest andyou're thinking about going
international.
Number one is you know whereare you going to go and why?
(40:55):
Is this going to be an easyplace to land?
Do you have product markets fitin a new market?
Second, is you know anappropriate timeline, an
appropriate timeline?
What I think I've seen lead tofailure is going over there,
(41:16):
with no established networkpartnerships, a customer
advisory board or early adoptercustomers already in hand and
showing up and expecting to kindof be successful.
Someone who I work with closelyhad done three to four years of
research before he made theleap over to the US.
(41:36):
He himself is the founder,moved there, brought with him
the you know IP around thecompany, the product, to
establish the business in the USand to go off of that market.
He's since hired, you know, aformer colleague of mine
actually to help him scale thebusiness and I think he's had 10
customers and been with themfor multiple years, deeply
(42:00):
invested and connected to the VCand technology community.
There has five to 10 otheradvisors that are the buyer
persona for the technology thathe sells.
I think he's unbelievablywell-established and mitigated a
ton of risk from going overthere and being successful.
So I'd say, the research beingsuper thoughtful around how to
(42:25):
land in the market successfully,seek out advisors, seek out, as
I did here, government partnerswho've been great for us as
we've established relationshipshere with Rippling.
They've helped open doors andmake introductions, helped us
find our office space, a ton ofthings that they've done to make
our life easier.
So find those right connections, do the deep research that you
(42:48):
need to do and minimize the riskthat you might face as you go
into a new market.
It's exciting to kind ofconsider the possibilities of,
you know, perhaps doing it backhome and being successful and
then wanting to go bigger, toopen up more market and, to you
know, hopefully expand theopportunities for your
(43:10):
organization.
But I think there's a lot tothink about in terms of
mitigating risk.
How do you scale culture?
Certainly, I think you have tosend, if not the leader and
founder of the company, then acouple of the established
players at your organization togo over there to be the
(43:31):
corporate DNA from yourheadquarters and to help
disseminate that into a neworganization that you build in a
new country.
Fantastic, great tips.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
And I'm sure that will be very valuable for people
across the globe as they thinkabout peer international.
So, matt, thank you very much,and I'm sure that will be very
valuable for people across theglobe as they think about
pairing internationally.
So, matt, thank you very much.
We have listeners and watchershere in Australia and elsewhere.
If anyone wants to connect withyourself personally or learn a
little bit more about Brickling.
How can they do that?
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Well, you can go to Rippling.
It's our website,wwwripplingcom.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn.
Be happy to connect there.
I think it's probably the twobest spots to catch me or to
learn more about what we'redoing.
Okay, great Look.
Thanks very much again.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
And we'll catch up again soon.
Appreciate it, thank you.
I'm wearing long sleeves because to cover up the
battle scars, there's plenty ofthem.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You pick Salesforce, linkedin, slack, rippling all
incredible organizations in theinfancy Like how did you, how
did you nail that every singletime Joining us to shed light on
this is.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Matt Loop by Matt Loop.
Matt Loop.
Matt Loop from HR and Workspecialist Rippling Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Loop, the tech titan disrupting the SaaS industry
landscape for the last twodecades.
Right now in growth mode and inthis you know, first 12 months
we've gone zero to roughly 50staff.
We don't have the localplaybook, we don't have the
massive customer base.
We're learning every day.
Are you going to be someone whorolls up their sleeves and says
(00:47):
I'm going to build?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Hey guys, as many of you know, when you're starting a
new project, you're not alwaysgoing to get it right every
single time.
With our interview with MattLoop, we had some amazing
content, but unfortunately ouraudio card got corrupted.
For that reason, the audio isnot quite as good as it should
be, but please do listen anyway,because there are some amazing
nuggets and an incredible story.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
In diving into your history, what I noticed is that
you're not just a VP of sales,you are a builder.
You have successfully builtsome incredible brands and I
know how difficult it is my timein building a couple of
businesses in the APAC market.
There's some highs and lows,there's some tears, there's some
(01:32):
late nights and there's somelessons and we kind of deal on
those mistakes that we make andthe lessons that we learn and we
take them on to the next rolesthat we have and I'm super
excited to introduce you andhave a conversation around.
What are some of those battlescars that you had and earned
along the way and how has thatimpacted you to date?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm wearing long sleeves because to cover up the
battle scars, there's plenty ofthem.
I've been blessed withoutquestion 20 years in an exciting
industry of technology, largelyall around cloud computing,
software as a service.
I got my start with Salesforcekind of the pioneer of this
(02:19):
whole space, the disruptor ofthe on-premise software world,
the disruptor of the on-premisesoftware world and I joined them
.
Everyone knows the brand,certainly today, 80,000 or so
employees and certainly theleader and the instigator of
that whole cloud computingmovement.
But I joined it.
It was 2003.
(02:39):
It was 250 employees, it wasprivate and it was very much
unknown, certainly outside ofthe US.
There were incredible peoplethere in early days, not just
Mark but a variety of otherpeople who have since gone on to
start incredible companies.
But I was very fortunate tojoin there to, I think, learn
(03:04):
what a great sales culture lookslike, one that invests in all
of their employees and a massivebeneficiary of that, one who's
a disruptor and scaling rapidly,certainly a byproduct of the
growth at all costs world.
(03:25):
That was Salesforce and some ofthe other companies, although
that's hugely tapered back.
In my most recent role it wasRichard Terry Loy who ran Zuara,
(03:46):
who originally hired me, aaronRoss, who wrote the Bible around
predictable revenue that everySaaS company has used to build
their outbound motion.
To Mike Derrison, who ran allof the sales solutions business
at LinkedIn.
To Bob Fratty, cro of Slack.
To Aaron Katz, who is the CROof Elastic, now the CEO of
(04:08):
ClickHouse, and then, of course,to where I am today, and Matt
Plank, the CRO of Rippling.
The CVs of them are insane andthey've been incredibly
supportive of me as I kind oftry to do the international
scale up for a US based companyin Australia or broadly Asia.
(04:31):
I've learned so much from themand hundreds of other incredible
execs that have worked at thosecompanies.
So, look, I've always been partof growth companies.
I think I've certainlyfine-tuned what I love and
(04:52):
what's important to me.
It started with Salesforce andI think it gave me an
understanding of I want adisruptor, I want someone who's
going to make a meaningfulimpact in the space that they're
in.
I want to be part of growth.
I want to be part of not justgrowing a revenue number, but
growing a culture, a teambuilding, something special.
(05:14):
I think that all probably goesback to my early days of being a
passionate athlete.
Even when I was 13 or 14 yearsold, I coached the younger girls
club team that was in my soccerclub team and I just always
(05:35):
loved whether I was playing oreven coaching at a young age
bringing together a group ofpeople towards a common goal,
whether that's win achampionship or win the
tournament, putting in the hardwork, building trust and respect
amongst your team members andjust going for it.
(05:58):
And I think I try to apply alot of those principles in what
I'm doing in the office day today.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
I can relate to that sense ofbuilding team camaraderie and
really creating a communitywithin your own business, but
also for the clients that youserve as well.
I want to pick up on somethingthat you mentioned that you love
working for disruptiveorganizations or organizations
that are in that disruptive mode, but you've picked Salesforce,
linkedin, slack, ripley allincredible organizations in the
(06:30):
infancy like how did you, howdid you nail that every single
time?
Because they've been disruptorsin their space.
I wish you look for look.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I do believe that you create your own luck.
My luck, perhaps, wasn created.
I was on a wine bus in Napa andAaron Katz, who was an employee
at Salesforce at the time, knewI was unhappy in the role that
I was in at the moment.
He said you need to come overand look into Salesforce.
(07:02):
And so, with a few introductions, I was able to get in, have an
interview, do well and get arole.
So that was really thelaunchpad, I guess, to get in
the door.
I think I always keep tabs andI'm looking for emerging
companies and trends, whetherit's myself using them to do my
(07:27):
job better or make my lifebetter and that kind of plays
into LinkedIn.
I'm member number like 650,000.
I don't know the exact number,but it's in the first million
and I think there are a billionmembers now.
But when that came out I wasone of the first to jump on and
you know LinkedIn gets improvedas the network grows.
(07:50):
So this was in its infancy.
But the whole concept of whatit was all about kind of
building and developing yourprofessional brand, being able
to leverage relationships whereyou have them to get warm
introductions I just bought intothat.
And in my you know, my firstdecade at Salesforce, linkedin
became a part of how I sold.
(08:12):
You know, if we were going intoearly customers like Seek in
Australia, one of the earlyadopters of Salesforce, I would
go on and would see like isthere someone that I could talk
to to perhaps get the meetingthat we're struggling to get
right now?
So I was one of the earlyadopters of LinkedIn and
(08:32):
serendipitously, uh, anopportunity came up when they
launched their sales navigatorproduct to do so, to have
someone on the ground in Asia tolead that.
And so there was no betterperson for me at that.
No better person, hopefully,than me having done the
Salesforce, built 10 years ofconnections with sales leaders
(08:55):
in Australia and being a massiveproponent myself of the whole
kind of social selling, modernselling movement and being just
a linkedin fanboy, that made mylife at salesforce better, and
so I made that jump, uh and andwent to linkedin.
I had a couple of years buildingup in asia and then an
(09:19):
opportunity to move back to theus, little arm twisting of my
australian wife, to go back andspend a little time with my
family but also, from aprofessional perspective,
hopefully have the opportunityto lead a North American
business, perhaps somethingslightly bigger in scope than
what was afforded to me withinLinkedIn in Australia.
(09:39):
And so we moved back from 2015to 2019.
We loved it Incredible time forfour, four and a half years in
North America, but then ourdaughter was going to start
kindergarten.
We always knew that there was atimeline for us to come back to
where we knew we were going toestablish roots and be close to
(10:00):
our family here and there wasn'ta good opportunity with
LinkedIn back in Asia.
So I thought I started thinkingabout again the companies that
were disruptors.
Who was doing somethinginteresting to me and making my
life better Now at the time?
(10:20):
Now at the time I wasn't a userof Slack, but I knew I hated
email.
Both LinkedIn and Salesforcehad the email-centric
organizations when I was thereand I knew something could help
organize information andcommunicate better.
And so I got you know nine to12 months ahead of my known move
(10:43):
back to Australia.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Got you know nine to twelve months ahead of my known
move back to australia startedreconnecting with bob and cro
and seeing a little bit of anopportunity to help expand in
asia, and so that happened andis there some sort of evaluation
that you go through when you'relooking at these next companies
of what's going to be the nextbig winner or a good horse to
bet on that?
You look at the financials, theleadership team, like where
they are geographically growthyear to year.
(11:07):
What are the things that youlook at?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, all the above.
I think again I'm fortunatehaving the network I've been in
for 20 years so many people fromSalesforce and LinkedIn and now
Slack.
My former colleagues have goneon and are running most of the
great companies that you want tobe at now or they're certainly
in senior positions, so Iusually have an insider to
(11:30):
understand what's going on there, what's the business like, what
are their ambitions for Asiaand see if it aligns with kind
of what I'm looking for.
It's exactly what happened withRipple.
You know Two former colleaguesare senior leaders in our North
American business.
They reached out to me knowing15 plus years in the Australian
(11:54):
market.
They were launching theirpayroll product and they just
wanted perspective ongo-to-market here, what's
different, how should they thinkabout setting it up, and I
jumped on the phone, learned alittle bit more about the
opportunity.
I certainly knew the financialsand a bit about Rippling and
you know it was, I think, theright time in my career to make
it from Slack and Salesforce.
(12:15):
And then I went and meteveryone else.
I met with our COO, mattMcInnes, with Matt Plank, my
boss, and a number of otherpeople to get a feel for culture
to understand what they werelooking to do as they
internationalize the business,to ensure it aligns with what I
want to do and it does.
It was build something that'struly transformational, that is
(12:40):
going to be a legacy typecompany that is a disruptor in
the space, where you could argue, the incumbents and the ones
that have been leading in ourspace perhaps are right for
disruption.
And so it's ticked a lot ofboxes and actually today is my
year anniversary at Rippling.
(13:01):
I'm sure I'll do a post aboutit, but it's been an incredible
12 months.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Incredible, incredible 12 months, and I mean
when I look at the success andthe growth that you've had and
the brand that's already beenbuilt in.
Australia like it's prettyspectacular to go from zero to
where you are today.
I guess that brings me back toa question around being a
student of the game beingcoachable.
That's something with Harvardwas that for hiring salespeople
is their coachability.
But I think that that needs tocontinue through leadership as
(13:27):
well, because the more you learn, the more you apply those
lessons, the quicker you can dothis.
The second, the third, thefourth time, when you reflect
back on your time in Salesforceor Slack, linkedin, are there
any gotchas?
Are there any things?
Where you go, I messed up andI'm going to make sure that I do
things differently and that'sgoing to excite my way to go to
(13:48):
market.
I messed up all the time.
Anything significant thatreally pulled you back and you
thought at the time?
I'm going to make sure I neverlet that happen again.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Good question.
So I'd say there's a few thingsthat perhaps I've implemented
here at Rippling and I think inprevious lives I could have done
a better job of it and I thinkhave done a better job of it and
(14:33):
I think, knock on wood, I'mdoing a better job now.
Number one is interviewing andmaking sure that you're
attracting great talent.
I'd say, earlier in my career,without the experience of hiring
great people, I've probablyhired lookalikes, people that I
just had things in common withand didn't seek diversity.
(14:57):
I don't think I probablyfocused on the right attributes
and values to ensure thatthey're an appropriate fit for
what we're trying to accomplish,for what we're trying to
accomplish, and I think I'veimproved upon that, diversity
being a big one.
If I look at any role we'rehiring now and my recruiter will
(15:20):
attest I won't really engageunless there's a diverse
candidate slate.
I think I've gotten better atunderstanding and having a
different risk, tolerance fordifferent roles, taking
intelligent risks in order tobring in diversity to the
organization.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Can you give an example of an intelligent risk
that you take today?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I mean I'll give two examples and I'll name them on
the podcast.
And I'll name them on thepodcast, hopefully they watch,
because they're both justincredible and I'm fine.
I guess it's too right becauseI definitely question myself and
I think hiring these two peopleI learned a ton about how I
need to perhaps think outsidethe square and really assess on
(16:08):
skill but also will and how tobest do that interview process.
So Anne, who was at BD at BakerMcKenzie, a law firm, who came
into interview for a juniorselling role at LinkedIn and you
know on paper it's not the fit.
She doesn't come from X numberof companies that we typically
(16:31):
hire from and law firm you knowlimited experience in selling
technology.
Why would we bring her in?
And you know you could tell shecame in to deliver the
presentation, her interviews andthen finally the panel.
In everything she was soprepared.
You could tell her passion wasjust through the roof for
(16:54):
wanting to be here.
I remember asking her like howdid you prepare?
Because it's very obvious shehadn't.
The answer was you know I didthis with my husband a third of
the three times I went throughit.
He wants me to not get the jobhere times I went through it.
(17:15):
He wants me to not get the jobhere and uh, anyways, we hired
her, you know, and fast forwardto where she is now.
I mean she was a top performerpretty much every year I think
she's got a hundred or so peoplethat roll up to her at
microsoft.
Incredible, um, human being,you know, did her job
unbelievably well but was theright person in scale-up mode.
That just sets such a highstandard for how you show up
(17:35):
every day, for how you treatyour colleagues, for how you
treat employees, our customers,and that is contagious.
If you get, especially in theearly hires, if you get those
types of people, you get thatright, the skill and the will,
the culture, fit and theaptitude.
(17:56):
Life is just wonderful.
The other one was Jesse.
You know he was we were doing apilot at Staples furniture
supplier.
He was a sales rep who was kindof an advocate for getting
LinkedIn in there to help theirsales process.
And I remember you know my repcoming back and saying you got
(18:19):
to meet this guy.
He's dying to get in here.
I said really yeah, furnituresales guy.
And again came in and justabsolutely blew us away.
The professionalism was justoff the charts, the preparation,
the precision.
It was incredible.
(18:39):
He was clearly a student of thegame and still is to this day.
I remember fast forward threeor four years later at the sales
kickoff 4,000 plus people inLas Vegas, and he's one of three
people celebrated as AE of theyear.
So I think I've gotten muchbetter at looking beyond the CV,
(19:02):
truly asking the rightquestions to understand who
these people are, what theirdrivers are, the values that
they live their life by, as wellas the aptitude to do the role
effectively.
I love that response.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
SaaS recruitment business that is focused on
startup and scale-up SaaSbusinesses and helping them
build their go-to-market teamsglobally, and our unique value
proposition is that we're allex-SaaS professionals ourselves.
So we've all been in thetrenches, we've all built those
sales teams ourselves and one ofthe challenges that I faced
(19:47):
early on in this new careerpivot is a lot of hiring
managers, particularly in aconservative market, is a lot of
hiring managers, particularlyin a conservative market, if we
can call it that, which is anemployer's market rather than an
employee's market is they'relooking for that paper-perfect
candidate and they're looking atthe CV and they're
disqualifying so many peoplebecause they're not
paper-perfect.
But I liken it a little bit tosomeone going on a date in the
(20:11):
old days.
You may want to begin to settledown with someone.
You've got your tick box overall of these things.
You may tick all those boxes,but you don't have that
compatibility, you don't havethat cultural fit or that
personality click and you're notgoing to be the right person
for the business.
So I really like the fact thatyou touched on looking beyond
the CV.
So I really liked the fact thatyou touched on looking beyond
(20:32):
the CV.
It's a nice pivot to somethingI really wanted to understand is
you mentioned skill and will aspart of your interview process
there.
What are some of the othercharacteristics that you look
for in a founding team?
So, when you're looking to gowritten here, what are the
(21:00):
traits and characteristics ofthat founding team that I want
to then take that into um theevolution of your hiring
strategy, because I think thatyou've got a founding team
strategy and I also think thatthe team that gets you from zero
to one perhaps isn't isn't allthe time going to be the team
that gets you from one to tenand ten to a hundred.
So how do you think aboutgetting that high performing
sales team to get you to whereyou're going to today and then
at what point you begin to toyears?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
in terms of having to bring in.
I hope that that theory iswrong, like I hope that I can
hire people that can scale withus.
And that's always something I'mkind of probing and testing for
, and I think the best thing isgrowth mindset.
How do you test for that, likeunderstand how people are trying
(21:40):
to self-improve, what are theirgaps or what are areas that
they know self-aware or feedbackprovided that they can improve
upon, and what are they doing toimprove?
You know, is it throughmentorship?
Is it through coursework?
Is it constantly reading?
You know what is their attitudetowards growth Because, like
(22:03):
you said, I'm probably not goingto get all the boxes ticked on
everyone.
The dream candidate is rare or,if not altogether, doesn't
exist.
So, for the things that mightnot all be there, whether it's
industry knowledge or productknowledge or selling to a
certain persona is this persongoing to adapt and grow into
(22:26):
that?
Do they have just kind of arabid appetite to grow and
improve?
And so I think that'sabsolutely something that I'm
looking for.
I think right now in growthmode and in this first 12 months
, we've gone zero to roughly 50staff.
We don't have the local playbooks, we don't have the massive
(22:47):
customer base.
We don't.
We're learning every day andyou have to be okay and actually
thrive in that environment.
Are you going to be someone whorolls up their sleeves and says
I'm going to build our playbookto sell to retail organizations
based on what I'm doing rightnow with this company?
(23:07):
Are you going to becollaborative and share that?
Are you going to just besomeone who is a wealth of
knowledge and assisting andsupporting their team members?
So I think that's certainlyimportant.
Resilience I think it getstalked about a lot, particularly
(23:28):
when it's crappy macroeconomicconditions, a lot of technology,
sales companies doing it toughright now.
But I think we've been veryupfront and I think I've gotten
better at this in each job Likethis is what it is and this is
what it's not.
I will tell you what is workingand what's good.
(23:49):
The upside, I will be veryhonest and is what it's not.
I will tell you what is workingand what's good.
The upside I will be veryhonest and say what it's not, to
make sure that you don't wasteyour time and we don't waste
ours and we don't get the fitwrong.
And resilience right now isabsolutely one.
It is hard to build period Likeyou don't have all the
(24:11):
resources that you get in abigger company.
Um, you're constantly changingand pivoting, and so I think
that's something that I I'd callout very much to candidates as
well.
Any tests that need to beprocessed, um difficult.
I think you can ask forexamples of that.
I think you can ask forexamples of that.
(24:32):
I think you can ask for history.
I think you can look at wherethey've been and be knowing
those organizations what's realand what's perhaps not.
But I also just think radicaltransparency or almost
disqualifying is a good thing todo.
(24:53):
Like, if there are skeletons inthe closet or if there are
things that are challenging,there's no point at trying to
hide that and kind of smoke andmirrors.
What's happening in thebusiness?
It's a battle for talent.
It's very tough.
What's happening in thebusiness?
It's a battle for talent.
It's very tough.
Like there could be thisinclination to lie about what
(25:15):
it's like on a day-to-day toattract someone, but three
months down the road, one of youis going to be kicking
themselves.
Right, you hired the wrongperson who isn't the right fit
for where we are and what weprovide, or you know the
employee saying the same.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Hybrid work.
That's something which hasreally changed and evolved in
the last two, three years sinceAlvin.
There's a lot of talk aboutfrom both sides.
We're a hybrid workforce.
Candidates will say what's thework-from-home policy?
But what is your perspective onhybrid work and how do you get
(25:57):
the most productivity out ofyour workforce?
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You know this new life that I'm looking at.
I think it's early days onflexible work, whatever your
perspective might be on it.
I am 17-ish years of in theoffice every day.
Salesforce, I was in every day.
Linkedin, I was in every day.
I joined Slack and then, acouple months later, COVID hit
(26:26):
and I happen to be providing aplatform that enables remote
work.
So it was convenient andserendipitous.
So I'm still learning myself.
I love being in the office.
I was, I think, productive athome.
We're a hybrid workforce rightnow, just full transparency.
(26:48):
We're three days in the office,two days at home.
We're a hybrid workforce rightnow, just full transparency.
We're three days in the office,two days at home.
And it's being conscious,thoughtful about how to best
maximize those days.
So I'll do a lot of just catchup admin work at home.
I'll do a lot of myinternational Zoom meetings to
(27:08):
you know, namely in the US.
When I'm at home and the daysI'm in office I try to
prioritize my one-on-ones that Ihave regularly with my local
team, try to prioritize customermeetings or group problem
solving when we can cometogether in person.
And I think we can better workthan trying to do it remotely.
I think we got really good atSlack Just one, I guess, like
(27:32):
tip that they had.
That I appreciated we had nointernal meetings on Friday, so
we just eliminated that and weconstantly scrutinized what.
Where is there fat in ourcalendar that we can trim?
Like, what are the things thatare just meetings that are
pointless?
We can give back selling timeto the reps.
(27:52):
We can minimize and allowpeople to, you know, go have a
longer lunch or focus onwellbeing.
But I think that's somethingthat I try to do as well Even
now at Rippling, like whatmeetings don't need to happen?
What work can be doneasynchronously In Slack?
It can be an update.
You used to say could thismeeting have been an email?
(28:13):
I say, could this meeting havebeen a Slack post?
But this is an ongoing battlethat employees and employers are
waging.
Right now.
It's very topical in theheadlines in Australian press.
There are organizations sayingif you want a kind of cruisy job
(28:41):
, startup world is not for you.
You know four day work weeksand you know breaking early.
You can't do that in a startupenvironment, and they're right.
It's very difficult to do whenyou're trying to build a high
performance and generationalcompany when you have big
(29:01):
ambition and aspirations as towhat you want that organization
to be.
And employees are equally righttoo, and employees are equally
right too.
We all kind of came out ofCOVID, I think, with a bigger
focus around well-being andwork-life balance.
I think that that's fantasticand I'm a proponent of that, and
(29:25):
employees absolutely have theability and right now to say you
know what?
I only do want to work fourdays a week, and that's
important to me.
They might struggle to find aton of companies out there.
In fact, we did research andsaid only less than 25% of
companies are actually going toimport that any time in the next
(29:45):
12 months.
They're going to struggle tofind perhaps companies that are
willing to take that on my timeand data.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
we build a high performing sales team and
culture, and it absolutely wasnot a nine to five operation.
They're the top performers, itwas correlation.
Top performers, funnily enough,put in a lot more work than the
lowest performers.
Sometimes they'd be in at sixor seven o'clock in the morning.
They'd be staying until 7o'clock, 8 o'clock in the
evening, because they reallybelieved in building something.
Building something not just forthe business but for themselves
(30:18):
as well.
And that's a piece which I, onreflection, I think is tricky
when you've got theseconflicting forces saying work
from home, you need to work hard.
But for me, one of the powerfulparts of building a team is
creating a culture and a senseof achievement, a sense of
(30:39):
purpose bigger than the personthemselves.
And that way they're coming notjust to do a job, they're
coming to be a part of something, to build something for
themselves for their team.
Yeah, which is it comes intoculture.
It's like, how do you createthat sort of I mean, do you
agree with that sort of premiseand what can you if so or if not
?
Like, what are the importantpieces that come into culture
(31:01):
that give you that platform tocreate that when you're working
with other people?
I think that for us, forRippling, where we are, in
particular in Australia.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Having the three days in office, I think, is critical
.
I think it is much harder toestablish an employee brand and
a culture amongst a bunch of newstarters to onboard and become
enabled effectively if you'reall at home.
So, without question, you knowwe all cram into our small
(31:37):
office.
We had visitors last week fromthe States who loved it, like
they said oh, this feels likethe scrappy startup days that
they craved and loved being partof.
You know, we all come togetherin there for a couple days a
week and I think that's largelywhat happens.
We all get better being aroundone another.
We are constantly learning.
(32:00):
We've got a very broad androbust platform, so there's
always something to pick up fromone of our technical product
experts or from a seller whojust had an engagement around a
particular product.
So I think that for me,building culture still happens
(32:23):
best in person.
Now I will say that I thinkthere's probably certain roles
that can have more flexibilityand be remote more often, like
if a recruiter is an example,his job is to be, on the phone
eight or nine hours a day tocandidates the whole time.
Do they need to be in the officeJust locked in a phone booth or
(32:48):
in a meeting room to haveprivate conversations with
candidates who don't want toknow that they're speaking to
you?
I don't know.
There's certain other rolesthat I think could be remote and
maybe we'll grow and evolve tothat and allow that flexibility.
(33:08):
But for us right now it it hasworked really well for us to be
those three days in person andthen the two days where I can
just plow through, perhapswithout any distraction, with a
couple hours saved, and commutetime.
Um, all the busy work that Ineed to do to do my job well I
think what I'm taking away fromthis as well is it's about being
(33:31):
intentional.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's not just a hybrid.
I was intentional in actuallyputting two to three days I
think everyone there togetherwith the intention of building
culture, enablements,camaraderie, and then you do get
a true investment for us aswell.
Best of both worlds.
Yeah, ripley is operating anddisrupting the HR tech space.
It's an up-and-coming, emergingindustry and, right, you said
(33:57):
you picked another winner by thelooks of things.
And how is Ripley solving a lotof the HR challenges for
disparate organizations that arelocated all over the world?
With international expansion,what problems are you and the
organization solving?
Speaker 1 (34:14):
There's a ton.
So there are a ton ofchallenges that are facing
Australian employers right now.
A lot of them are front pagenews.
You've got wage theft and 59%of companies in the last two
years have had some sort ofpayroll error, so you're more
(34:39):
likely to have been paidincorrectly than correctly in
the last two years.
This is largely because they'reusing multiple systems in order
to do that, or they're usinglegacy systems that order to do
that, or they're using legacysystems that require a lot of
manual intervention.
So I think on the payroll side,it's about automating, removing
(34:59):
the manual process that sitswith payroll professionals and
making their life easy.
You can take away some of themundane tasks and kind of grind
the work that they have to prepthe bank file at the end of each
month.
That's just kind of allautomagically done for you.
Then I think we can help reducethe errors.
(35:21):
If you're not having to usefive different systems to
combine perhaps multiplecountries where you need to pay
employees and bring that intoone.
That makes life easy.
You've got gender pay gap andso now everyone's required to
report those.
Every company that's.
(35:41):
Let's see over 50 employees, Ibelieve, or 100 need to start
reporting that this year and Ithink that number drops to 15
for next year.
So how can we provide the dataand insights for companies to
have all of that handy and evenhave a recipe ready to go report
that can be sent directly tothe government as part of the
(36:04):
requirement?
It's devices and it's deviceslike part of being an employee
is you often get corporate ITand something that is given to
you by the company to do yourjob.
You know, when I started I hada pile of 10 laptops in my home
office that I had to likemanually take to someone at a
pub or meet before we enteroffice or ship it to them.
(36:27):
We can do all that.
We can manage all of yourinventory.
We can ship all those out.
When you hire a new starter,that's pre-configured with all
the apps that they need to dotheir job Great fix capabilities
.
If something goes wrong, wegive you the box to ship it back
and so that's all taken care of.
There's constantly changing IRreform.
(36:47):
We've got the right todisconnect, which comes out in
August.
There's constantly changing IRreform.
We've got the right todisconnect, which comes out in
August.
But there are constantlychanging minimum wage rates and
modern award updates and all ofthese things often require going
into a system and manuallyadjusting that.
So how can we automate that andmake sure that those things are
(37:09):
happening in the background andtake that burden off an
organization?
In general, if you think aboutan employee and how they work
and the tools that they need todo their not to do their job,
not their productivity tools but, as an employee, the systems I
(37:29):
need to log into to get all thethings I need my pay,
performance and all of that it'susually tens of systems and
Ripple is really trying to befocused on the employee data
record at the center ofeverything and building a
platform with all of theapplications that would touch an
employee's experience all inone place, with workflow, with
(37:53):
analytics, with ai, all thosethings kind of baked in to the
underpinning platform.
So it's a big, ambitious plan.
We're also looking to tackleinternational which is why I
have a job, thankfully and todeliver payroll in a number of
countries, provide paymentoptions in hundreds of countries
(38:14):
and really do this at a scalethat no other company before us
has done.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Great Matt.
I also want to ask anotherquestion.
This is my preparation for 2025.
Let's just say that we're intough times.
It's probably going to bepretty tough in the Aussie
market and the West market forthe next six months or so.
But as SaaS businesses begin tolook at expansions, they begin
(38:40):
to look at going beyond theirheadquarter, whether that's in
Australia, north America, europe.
What are some of the strategiesthat you can give counsel on
when it comes to deployingculture, to overcoming legal
obligations, to looking atlogistical issues, to making
sure that you take that culture,that DNA of the headquartered
(39:04):
organization and deploy thatregionally?
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, a boring answer is that Rippling can help a lot
of companies in going andsetting up legal entities and
paying employees in othercountries.
So we're here to support onthat.
Look, I've done it, coming thisway US to Australia.
But here's what I would say,especially when we're talking
(39:29):
about Australian startups, Ican't say that there's been a
ton of wildly successful Aussiestartups that have made the leap
into the US.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It's a very difficult market.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
It's a big one.
It's probably the one that's oneveryone's mind.
Atlassian's over there, canva'strying to go and build a market
over there.
You know companies Aconex is anexample, I think successfully
made the leap there before theysold to Oracle.
There's a few that spring tomind, but it's difficult.
I know there's a few that Iadvise to and spend a lot of
(40:07):
time with.
I think they're doing itcorrectly.
So if you're perhaps speaking toaussie startups who might be
considering this, first andforemost, should you be doing
like, is now the time to take onthe behemoth task of going to
the us or going to europe?
Uh, that is extremely cost and,uh, time, expensive.
(40:33):
Uh, exercise to do it can.
It's one of those moments whereit can, like, make or break a
company if you don't get itright.
And so, um, amidst this time ofpotential scale and you got
some dollars to invest andyou're thinking about going
international.
Number one is you know whereare you going to go and why?
(40:55):
Is this going to be an easyplace to land?
Do you have product markets fitin a new market?
Second, is you know anappropriate timeline, an
appropriate timeline?
What I think I've seen lead tofailure is going over there,
(41:16):
with no established networkpartnerships, a customer
advisory board or early adoptercustomers already in hand and
showing up and expecting to kindof be successful.
Someone who I work with closelyhad done three to four years of
research before he made theleap over to the US.
(41:36):
He himself is the founder,moved there, brought with him
the you know IP around thecompany, the product, to
establish the business in the USand to go off of that market.
He's since hired, you know, aformer colleague of mine
actually to help him scale thebusiness and I think he's had 10
customers and been with themfor multiple years, deeply
(42:00):
invested and connected to the VCand technology community.
There has five to 10 otheradvisors that are the buyer
persona for the technology thathe sells.
I think he's unbelievablywell-established and mitigated a
ton of risk from going overthere and being successful.
So I'd say, the research beingsuper thoughtful around how to
(42:25):
land in the market successfully,seek out advisors, seek out, as
I did here, government partnerswho've been great for us as
we've established relationshipshere with Rippling.
They've helped open doors andmake introductions, helped us
find our office space, a ton ofthings that they've done to make
our life easier.
So find those right connections, do the deep research that you
(42:48):
need to do and minimize the riskthat you might face as you go
into a new market.
It's exciting to kind ofconsider the possibilities of,
you know, perhaps doing it backhome and being successful and
then wanting to go bigger, toopen up more market and, to you
know, hopefully expand theopportunities for your
(43:10):
organization.
But I think there's a lot tothink about in terms of
mitigating risk.
How do you scale culture?
Certainly, I think you have tosend, if not the leader and
founder of the company, then acouple of the established
players at your organization togo over there to be the
(43:31):
corporate DNA from yourheadquarters and to help
disseminate that into a neworganization that you build in a
new country.
Fantastic, great tips.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
And I'm sure that will be very valuable for people
across the globe as they thinkabout peer international.
So, matt, thank you very much,and I'm sure that will be very
valuable for people across theglobe as they think about
pairing internationally.
So, matt, thank you very much.
We have listeners and watchershere in Australia and elsewhere.
If anyone wants to connect withyourself personally or learn a
little bit more about Brickling.
How can they do that?
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Well, you can go to Rippling.
It's our website,wwwripplingcom.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn.
Be happy to connect there.
I think it's probably the twobest spots to catch me or to
learn more about what we'redoing.
Okay, great Look.
Thanks very much again.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
And we'll catch up again soon.
Appreciate it, thank you.
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