Scaling up: Lessons from the world's best CEOs and Founders

Very rarely do you get to tell the story of a wildly successful entrepreneur that is largely unknown beyond the immediate circle of influence. Today on Scaling Up, Greg Boorer, the CEO and Founder of CDC, formally Canberra Data Centres, which is in some rarefied air among companies globally, having compounded earnings at over 30% for the last 15 years.

It's now valued well in excess of $10 billion and is at the centre of the beating heart of Australia's critical infrastructure. All this, and it still has a massive growth runway ahead of it.

Greg's story in many ways is the CDC story from an aspiring cyclist and reluctant it graduate. Greg has become the face and often lead salesperson of a business that has rewritten industry standards as it relates to innovation and security.

In what is seen from the outside as a commoditised industry, CDC has thrived by listening to customer needs and adapting accordingly.

This is a story of initial hustle and belief in an opportunity, but ultimately it's about resiliency and delivering on promises. Greg has undoubtedly built one of Australia's best businesses from the ground up, and to hear him speak about this scaling journey with the knowledge and passion that he does will undoubtedly be inspiring to all our listeners.

Transcript:

CHAPTERS:  

(00:55) – Greg’s beginnings  

(05:50) – A foreign start  

(11:32) – Moving back to Australia   

(18:40) – Building Canberra Data Centres , now CDC

(22:40) –Tactics, tips and techniques

(24:12) – Technological and competitive ddvantage   

(30:54) – Solidifying CDC’s Future  

(36:58) – CDC’s scaling journey 

(44:08) – Why you need to partner with the right people  

(47:33) – CDC’s sustainability commitment 

Bill Beament grew up in a working class family out of Esperance in Western Australia. He dreamed of being a general manager of a mine one day.

Instilled at a young age with a deep work ethic and an acute commercial sense, he achieved much, much more than this as CEO and Executive Chair of Northern Star. Bill reshaped the underground gold mining industry and built from scratch a $16b, ASX 50 behemoth.

Not resting on his laurels though, Bill has more recently turned his attention to wrapping up all his learnings about mining, about people and about leadership to his own venture Develop Global (ASX:DVP), which is on the precipice of replicating Northern Star's success in critical minerals with its unique business model of both mining services and mine ownership.

This is one of Australia's great stories, largely unknown and untold outside the resource community so heavily centred in Perth, but the scaling lessons, as you'll hear, are applicable to all sectors and leaders of businesses, of all shapes and sizes.

This episode takes you underground into a world unfamiliar to most, but applicable to all. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Scaling Up with Bill Beament, CEO and founder of Develop Global. 

CHAPTERS:  

(00:55): Bill’s upbringing in country WA

(04:09):  Starting in the underground industry  

(06:19): Lessons from Barminco 

(09:11): Building Northern Star   

(14:03): What makes a world-class underground mine operator

(18:48): Operational excellence at Northern Star and starting Develop Global   

(24:23): Unearthing critical minerals  

(29:14): DVP's business model

(32:34): Buying Woodlawn mine

(35:59): Best in class hiring and retaining talent

(41:47): Remuneration philosophy

Hiroki Takeuchi, the co-founder and CEO of GoCardless started in 2011. GoCardless is a star of the blossoming UK FinTech scene- last valued at $2.1b, the business is on a mission to take the pain out of payments for businesses of all shapes and sizes – from your local gym collecting monthly membership right through to the Uk’s biggest utility companies.

Payment collection is a problem as old as time, and in creating a bank payment network to rival the card networks like Visa and Mastercard , it is also an incredibly complex ecosystem to navigate and operate in. But Go Cardless has seen tremendous success – it currently processes over $35b in payments annually from close to 100,000 customers.

Aside from regulatory complexity that is only heightened when you throw cross border payments into the mix, the challenge of scaling a business that form day one  has had such a variety of customer shapes and sizes gives rise to some wonderful lessons for operators.

Hiroki’s personal story is incredibly inspiring. The founder’s journey always involves a level of grit and determination to overcome adversity, but Hiroki takes it to a new level; five years into the Go Cardless journey, a bike accident resulted in a spinal cord injury. If anything, it gave him a him a perspective on life and leadership that has enabled Go Cardless to flourish like it has.

Show Notes:

(02:12): Founding Story

(06:45): Why direct debit?

(10:03): Unraveling the complexity around

(12:31): Navigating the rules and regulations on

(14:02): GoCardless’ competitive advantage

(19:00): Scaling challenges when expanding internationally

(21:52): G2M success via partnerships

(24:21): GoCardless’ culture journey

(26:55): Embedding and living company values

(28:26): Leading the business post bicycle accident

(31:10): Evolution of leadership when scaling a business

What is a high-performing culture? It's a question some think as straightforward as it is philosophical. In these special episodes, we explore high performing cultures;  what they are, how to create them, and most importantly how to not just maintain them, but scale them.

By drawing upon the wisdom of the previous CEOs, founders, leaders who I have had the pleasure of interviewing over the last six years between them have created some $150b in market capitalisation. After 42 episodes of Scaling Up and 300,000 words of transcripts we now have a database of knowledge to dive into to pull some common threads together.

This second episode of the Culture Scaling Playbook is wholly dedicated to the integral culture scaling topic of hiring and retaining great talent. The crux of every scaling success is great people, and this episode aims to give operators meaningful and tangible best practise ideas for them to execute upon when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent - be it from onboarding, feedback or remuneration (and everything in between).

Culture Scaling Workbook:

Includes show notes, links to sources and other interesting thought starters - ⁠DOWNLOAD

Chapters:

(02:00) The importance of belonging in high performing teams

(06:56) What makes for great hiring and why is it the centre of successfully scaling culture?

(13:56) The role of the Chief People Officer and the right time to hire one

(16:29) The importance of onboarding when it comes to building a cohesive culture

(20:12) Let's talk remuneration

(23:43) Building trust through feedback

(30:34) Diversity of thought and why it produces better outcomes

(33:23) The wrap up

For more content and insights:

⁠www.tdmgrowthpartners.com⁠

⁠https://twitter.com/TDM_Growth

What is a high-performing culture? It's a question some think as straightforward as it is philosophical. In these special episodes, we explore high performing cultures;  what they are, how to create them, and most importantly how to not just maintain them, but scale them.

By drawing upon the wisdom of the previous CEOs, founders, leaders who I have had the pleasure of interviewing over the last six years between them have created some $150b in market capitalisation. After 42 episodes of Scaling Up and 300,000 words of transcripts we now have a database of knowledge to dive into to pull some common threads together.

This first episode of the Culture Scaling Playbook is wholly dedicated to the role values play in successfully scaling people and culture; why they are important, how they have to be at the centre of every decision made and every behaviour exhibited in a business and importantly how best to do this.

Chapters:

(02:00) High performance in teams

(04:18) What is culture - the triangle framework

(07:18) Link between effective cultures and exceptional business results

(13:02) Values and when they get formalised

(21:35) Living the valuies and codifying them

(26:13) Values and hiring - from interviews to onboarding

(34:25) Can you refresh or change your values?

(37:07) The wrap up

Culture Scaling Handbook:

Includes show notes, links to sources and other interesting thought starters: Download

For more content and insights:

www.tdmgrowthpartners.com

https://twitter.com/TDM_Growth

Adam Schwab is our guest on Scaling Up, the CEO and co-founder of Luxury Escapes – a travel marketplace with almost $1b in bookings annually.

Adam’s story is that of a quintessential and accomplished entrepreneur – one of trial and error, learning from mistakes and applying it to the next chapter as is always required. Luxury escapes and its coming to being is exactly this – the twist and turns of a variety of businesses, over almost a decade, that eventually spun out something that was scalable and incredibly capital efficient.

While the scaling story is largely unknown but none the less incredible – it is a story born out of customer obsession, and providing consistent value to both sides of the market place

Buckle up, this is a fast paced and frenetic end to another great season of Scaling Up. We will be back in 2023 with another series, a new format and hopefully many more lessons for business builders, executives and investors alike.

Chapters:

(02:39): The Founding Story of Luxury Escapes

(09:30): Business model: Part 1, The Flash model

(16:20): Business model: Part 2, Building trust in the brand

(23:09): Business model: Part 3, Scaling Product and TAM.

(29:58): Business model: Part 4, Horizon 3 and the billion dollar question.

(35:51): People and Culture: Journey and Philosophy

(40:02): Retaining Talent and views on remuneration

(42:05): The Roles of Coaching, Mentoring, and Managing

Show notes:Adam with a longer version of the start up years and founding story

Adam's podcast "The Contrarians"

Reggie Aggarwal is the co-founder of Cvent, a $600m revenue Software company, that is listed on the Nasdaq (ticker CVT). Cvent is allows organizations to  more efficiently run, manage and host all formats of events from virtual to in-person and hybrid. If you have been to a large conference recently, chances are it hasa been powered by Cvent.

Reggie is in a very unique position, having founded the company in 1999, he has seen 3 recessions, an IPO, A SPAC, a merger, competitors come and go and everything in between, and so it was a privilege to try and piece all the important moments in history together, and distill into lessons for current operators.

To have been at the helm of a business that has scaled from 12 people to almost 5000 people has also required Reggie to be on his on scaling journey and to dig into the how he has thought about this, from someone who is consistently voted one of the best CEOS in the US, makes for a fascinating conversation.

This is probably a great conversation to pair with a previous TDM blog, what makes a great CEO, as no doubt going through the conversation, you will be able to identify many of those traits shining through.

Cvent’s product evolution from a point solution to an integrated and highly scalable platform (8:40)

How pivoting out of necessity created Cvent’s Triple Threat; in-person, virtual and hybrid virtual events (14:35)

Cvent’s balanced and ‘frugally profitable’ approach enabling sustainable growth and longevity (18:10)

Maintaining confidence and market share against rapidly scaling competitors (22:55)

The differences and unique challenges of IPO and SPAC processes (25:50)

Lessons and growth opportunities from being taken private by Vista (31:54)

Managing an executive team with a long-term tenure (36:15)

Continuous involvement and hiring tips to effectively scale across countries and cultures (40:03)

Strategic and tactical advantage of the New Delhi office (43:13)

What makes a great CEO and fostering an intrapreneurial culture (45:09)

The three Proverbs Reggie lives by that enabled his and Cvent’s longevity (47:25)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Ruslan Kogan, the CEO and co-founder of Kogan.com (ASX:KGN) is the guest on this episode of 'Scaling Up'. Kogan.com is Australia’s largest pure play online retailer with over $1b in sales. Many listeners over the years would have no doubt been introduced to Kogan.com via their incredibly successful own brand electronics business that catapulted the business to a size and scale that has allowed them to enact a phenomenal e-commerce playbook. Aside from expanding their direct to consumer product offering, Kogan.com has also been able to drive greater efficiencies and value to customers across a range of service verticals.

Kogan founding story (7:08)

The early years of Kogan with a bootstrapped and presale funded business model (8:43)

Ruslan’s unique strategy to create customer attention by engaging with the enemy (12:32)

Kogan’s diversification across new verticals through partnership with service adjacencies (18:11)

Success of the Marketplace and Kogan First program, transforming Kogan into a platform business (22:10)

Maintaining best in class in bound logistics in the e-commerce industry (26:51)

Proliferation and efficiency of robotics and automation in warehousing (30:21)

Launching a last mile logistic service in the pandemic and the transition back to external courier services (33:14)

Understanding and optimising for your unique core position and competitive advantage (36:16)

Initial hiring tactics e.g., only accepting CVs from Gmail accounts to filter for logical and analytical competencies (38:30)

Expectation to ‘reply all’ in work email chains, building a culture of transparency and accountability (44:11)

How Kogan’s cultural values have scaled from the company’s inception (45:48)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

After a mini hiatus, 'Scaling Up' is back, and we have some incredible guests lined up in the coming months, none more so than this episode.

Influence of the Soviet Union on BetaShare’s mission to democratise investing and encourage equal access (6:42) 

BetaShares Founding Story and the opportunity in the ETF industry (9:20) 

Turning a great idea into a great business and disrupting incumbents in the ETF industry (12:13) 

Nuances in the Australian retail ETF market that allowed for BetaShares growth (14:06) 

The movement of the ETF industry to thematic and ESG investing (17:44) 

Diversification and innovation in the index industry led by new index providers such as Solactive (21:41) 

The future of BetaShares (Horizon Two) – leveraging technology to improve financial literacy in Australia (23:24) 

People as BetaShare’s competitive advantage and secret sauce (26:06) 

Fostering innovation by fostering a culture that breaks down the stigma around failure as detrimental to performance (28:56) 

Lessons on empowering leaders, managers, and the team at large to see the benefit of failure and mistakes (30:39) 

Hiring and testing for innovation and curiosity (31:36) 

Diagnostic tools to measure innovation within BetaShares culture (32:45) 

How to balance giving customers what they want and innovating to provide something they haven’t even thought of (34:03) 

The United Ukraine Appeal –delivering non-military aid to the victims of war in Ukraine (37:30)

Joel Montaniel is the Co-founder, and CEO of SevenRooms, a private software company devoted to improving the way hospitality operators leverage their data to enhance business operations, build better direct relationships with customers and deliver an unforgettable customer experience. In their own words, SevenRooms allows ‘the big to feel small and the small to feel big’ when it comes to customer relationships.

Named among the ‘Best Places to Work’ in New York, it’s clear that SevenRooms culture-first mentality is deeply embedded in the company’s DNA. With this in mind, Joel talks to how SevenRooms is investing in its employees and the programs they have put in place to enable them to do their best work.

Show Notes;

Empathising with customers to better understand the problem and re-think the solution (5:27) 

SevenRooms Value Proposition for restaurant operators (7:04) 

Transitioning the hospitality industry from systems of record to systems of intelligence that drives outcomes for businesses (11:31) 

SevenRooms competitive advantage to streamline operations, personalize service and maximise revenue profitability for customers (13:41) 

Pain points when scaling a global business – how your greatest weakness can become your greatest strength (16:50) 

Implementing a prioritization framework to inspire product innovation and identify where SevenRooms can uniquely serve their customers (18:57) 

Fostering innovation to drive the hospitality industry forward as the company scales (23:00) 

Supporting customers and managing interactions during the pandemic (27:27) 

Inspiration to build a culture first company (30:00) 

SevenRooms core values (33:54) 

Career planning with employees to resolve cultural tensions and find an intersection between company and employee needs (37:46) 

The importance of investing in employees and providing recharge periods – Fresh Start Program and 7 R&R (41:13) 

How the leadership team catches cultural bugs and detractors in the company (45:35)