R. J. Talyor likes to keep it real. He doesn’t pretend 2020 has been easy, and he tries to let his employees know that he’s struggling just like anyone else — so why not let loose a little during the workday?

“From a remote work perspective, we've made a little bit of fun of it,” R. J. says. “We did ‘Pattern89 Cribs’ like the MTV show where people if they were interested, could volunteer to give us a tour of their home. I went first and I showed our disgusting, dirty toy pit basement where my four children just make forts, and Legos are everywhere. … [This has helped] drive some cultural connection when we can't be connected in person.”

R. J. is the CEO and founder of Pattern89, a startup focused on helping e-commerce retailers understand what paid social ads work and why. Like most companies, his workforce went remote when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and he says that experience has led him to trust his team and stop worrying about people not getting their work done. 

This time has also led R. J. to reflect on the company’s five core values, which have guided him and other leaders since Pattern89’s inception. These values have also helped to create a workplace culture that R. J. is especially proud of after spending nine years at ExactTarget, where he was part of the world-renowned “orange” culture.

In this episode of Human Resolve, R. J. discusses why a company culture molded by core values is crucial, how you can use it to recruit exceptional talent, why having a workforce “representative of the country” is important to him (especially in the tech – and more specifically, artificial intelligence – space), what future workplaces may look like, and why hard work will always best talent.

“Proclaim something at the beginning, or if you're not at the beginning, proclaim something anyway, and then you've got to do the hard work to live into it,” he says. 

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Featured Leader

Name: R. J. Talyor 

Title: CEO and Founder 

Company: Pattern89

Noteworthy: R. J. is a former national champion swimmer and sees a lot of parallels between the hard work he put into athletics and the hard work he puts into his startup.

Where to find R. J.: LinkedIn 

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Human Resolve Episode 05 Highlights 

Highlights from the transcript. 

💡 A good work culture and core values are key to a successful company

[07:44] “When I started Pattern89, we sat down and we wrote out our core values at the very beginning, and they’re five core values that have stayed consistent. I repeat them at every team meeting. At every team meeting, I start out with ‘Here are our core values’ and it's kind of cheesy, but I've actually heard from the team that they like the repetitiveness of it. … Our core values are to do what's in the best interest of the team, to honor transparency, to think about speed over completeness, building a company that represents the country and honoring experimentation without the fear of failure.”

💡 It’s OK to value progress over perfection 

[11:13] “We're OK with not pixel-perfect in the first or second rev. And then we'll move to that as we figure out what works. … Perfect is the enemy of good or whatever that phrase is.”

💡 Diversity in all forms is a strength when developing a team

[11:31] “Building a company that represents the country is very important to me and to our company, and when we're not living into that core value by recruiting underserved populations or when our balance gets off in terms of men and women on the team — like when we go to 60/40 instead of where we normally are, which is 50/50 — someone calls us out. So I was like, ‘Hey, we need to be recruiting more women.’ … Or ‘We need to be recruiting in circles outside of our own.’ … Having a team that is not only diverse, but also willing and wanting to share opinions in a transparent environment, we've avoided some business risk that some of our counterparts have not.”

💡Don’t take it personally when people choose to leave the company 

[17:38] “I would tell myself to not take it so personally when someone's not a fit or when someone decides to leave. It's something I struggle with right now, still. Startup life is not for everybody, and our company is not for everybody. And some people have chosen to leave or don't fit the company. I've personally struggled with that. Like literally sleepless nights about how that person's going to be impacted, how it looks on me. Does it look bad on me if this person leaves the company? … It's OK when someone doesn't work out or chooses to exit the business — the world works out — versus assuming that you're going to have 100% retention from the beginning.”

💡 You’ll never know for sure how focused remote workers are, but trust is essential

[22:01] “I remember when we first went to remote — my parents were like ‘Well, how do you know if everyone's working?’ [I was] like, ‘Listen, I don't know, I just don't.’ My head will explode if I try to figure out where people are. Again, I've had experiences in previous roles where a leader would literally call around trying to figure out where Mark is, where R. J. is and where this person is and that person is. That's going to make you insane. You can either choose to trust people or not. … When you can't find them because they had to step away and help their child with math homework or something like that, it's a little maddening, but you just ultimately have to trust the team. Period.” 

💡 Lean into remote work and be an example for how to make the best of it

[29:53] “We actually went out west for five weeks this year to work remotely, and other team members at Pattern89 have done the same thing. While some people might be shy to say, ‘Hey, I'm traveling’ or ‘I'm out here’ or whatever, I actually was very forthright with it because I want the team to go and do stuff. … Talk about an easy way to make your company stand out from the rest — actually embrace that remote work. From a technology standpoint, as long as we can log on Zoom and you trust the employee, then that's great.” 

💡 Just like in sports, in startups, talent won’t take you nearly as far as hard work 

[31:17] “I have a great quote that I got in someone's email signature: ‘Nothing is too complicated that cannot be simplified by hard work.’ … OK swimmers and excellent swimmers — they both have to do hard work. And there's only so much talent — you can only get by with so much talent, and any person that's played sports knows that. Your talent will take you so far and then you just have to do hard work. Startup land is hard work, and I'm really good at hard work. And when you put in hard work, you get a result.” 
Top quotes from the episode:

R. J. Talyor:

Quote #1

[14:57] “As a white guy, I’m certainly the stereotype of tech, but our customers don't look like me. We serve all sorts of customers globally and for us, we're de...