Hudl’s Brian Kaiser emphasized the importance of company culture in the growth of his startup at last month’s Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship. Screenshot from Nebraska Entrepreneur on Vimeo.
Brian Kaiser never could find a company with the kind of culture he craved. So he started his own. Kaiser, who co-founded Hudl and today serves as CTO of the Lincoln-based company, spoke last month at the Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship about the role culture has played in the rapid growth of his company, which provides web-based software for coaches to use in their analysis of game film.
Stephanie Healy followed Kaiser’s talk with a speech in which she reviewed the key factors in the growth cycles of two companies she’s run. Healy was the co-founder of online marketing firm Vente, which sold to Experian in 2005, and now heads up Doc’s Choice, a dog food company.
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Culture, Kaiser said, is an emphasis from the outset at Hudl, where interviews of prospective employees focus heavily on how those people fit the company’s culture. That emphasis continues once Hudl gets employees in the door. Kaiser said it has paid dividends both internally and externally.
Internally, Kaiser said, the company reviews employees on upholding values that include “dominate, we’re a family, your success is ours, we’re obsessively competitive, we work smart and we work hard, make it fun, stay honest and stay grounded.” But those aren’t just buzzwords. Employees really embrace those objectives, and that bleeds over into the way customers and the general public perceives Hudl, helping fuel its growth.
“When we do cool things or we’re cool as a company, people talk about you,” Kaiser said. “We get more stuff in the press, we get more blog posts, we get more stuff on Twitter.”
That leads to more business, Kaiser said. It also draws talent to Hudl. What’s more, it helps establish high expectations for Hudl from the company’s customers. Kaiser closed by re-emphasizing the importance culture has played in the rapid growth of his company.
“Find tangible ways that you can make your culture solid, because it really, really is important,” he said. “I would consider it the strongest selling point for our company and what it makes it fun for us to work through every day.”
Stephanie Healy oversaw the rapid growth of Vente, an online marketing firm that sold to Experian in 2005. She now runs Doc’s Choice, a dog food company. Screen shot from Nebraska Entrepreneur on Vimeo.
Healy opened her discussion by echoing a theme touched on by Kaiser: “never stop selling.” That permeated the rest of Healy’s talk, in which she focused on four factors essential to growing her companies: people, funding, financials and leadership.
Healy said she never planned on becoming the CEO of a company, but when the opportunity presented itself her passion for the business and her willingness to seek help enabled her to overcome her initial misgivings.
“I wasn’t afraid to ask for advice,” Healy said. “And I knew that I didn’t know all the answers, but I knew who I could go and ask for help.”
For Healy, paying attention to customers proved just as important as seeking advice of experts. Vente morphed from an online marketer into a company that handled database work after a customer expressed frustration over its inability to collect data online.
“Listening to my customer, finding out a way to deliver what they wanted,” Healy said, “was the biggest thing that revolutionized our company.”
For Kaiser and Healy’s complete talks, including the question and answer sessions that followed, check the video below.
