It doesn't have to be crazy at work
We reflect on the benefits and realization that come when as busy founders you take the time to slow down in a facilitated environment.
Hey, we are Ramón Rodrigá?ez and Andrea Marino, Co-Founders at Nova, the Global Top Talent Network.
Welcome to Talent First, our newsletter where those who believe that talent is the most important resource in the economy get together.
Every week we cover a new topic related to attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining talent, as well as the learnings from our journey building Nova.
Summary:
Since the day we are born, the race starts. One milestone after the other, sports trophies, accomplishments of all sorts, then graduations and job promotions up until retirement. What a fast and accelerated life we live in, right? As entrepreneurs, it is easy to get in the race always focusing on the next big milestone and having an accelerated pace.
During the last 10 days we have done something we should all do more often, we decelerated. Nova was selected among 2.000 applications to join the Decelera program, an experience designed for ambitious founders to breathe, focus, and grow.
We were given the luxury of slowing down with purpose, and as co-founders, we hardly had that same chance before, we are glad we trusted the Decelera team and took the leap of faith.
So, if you want to learn about what we have experienced as co-founders during this once-in-a-lifetime experience, keep reading.
“It doesn’t have to be crazy at work”
It was not too long ago when we were introduced to a book called “It doesn't have to be crazy at work” by Jason Fried, the founder of Basecamp, a multi-billion dollar valued company, once a small startup. This book shaped our minds around what it means to be productive at work and the type of culture we wanted to build, a “Calm” company philosophy that reduces stress by increasing focus and minimizing chaos. Of course, the principles you will find in the book are easier to agree with than to implement (ask our teams??), especially in a world that glorifies long hours and is overlooking the importance of focus.
Being aware of the benefits of calmness, we applied to Decelera attracted by their mission which sounded unique when compared to the traditional VC world. Of course, we were skeptical at first, we thought we could not afford to be in Menorca for 10 days and distract ourselves from the day-to-day operations, luckily we trusted external recommendations because we were completely wrong.
To give you a bit of context, Decelera has the mission of “impacting the world by helping early-stage purpose-driven companies become sustainability-focused unicorns. Their unique Founder-centered approach focuses on tackling the most important personal and professional challenges”. While these words could sound idealistic and hard to believe, after the program we can stand behind this statement, as we incorporated lots of learnings and ideas about Nova’s future.
But let’s dive into it, what did we learn and what was the program about? We will divide this edition into 3 sections, the same as we have experienced as founders going through the process: breathe, focus, and grow. We will skip the nitty-gritty details so as not to spoil this experience for future attendees and we will keep it to our insights and reflections.
The breath phase
We land in Menorca, on a beautiful island with the sun shining, and gather with a group of people we have never met before only knowing that everyone is going through the same founder journey. After a few handshakes, we are given a mask and a few simple instructions, to meet at the beach in full silence, no words allowed. Not the typical start you could expect at a VC-led event, and the entire week has been very far from what you might expect from a traditional investment fund. It all started with one key metaphor, which we want to use to ask you, as a reader: when was the last time you removed your mask and allowed yourself to be your true self? Or at least questioning whether the version of you that most people know is the one that best represents you?
Metaphorically, as a group and founders, we were being asked to put the mask aside during the 10-day program and dare to share much more than a pre-made pitch and go beyond the surface. While all founders in the program are driving exciting businesses, we all share deep struggles, and having a safe space is key for growth to happen.
The breath phase has guided us through meditation sessions, early morning runs, and swims and has been fully focused on the individual, calming our minds and taking care of our bodies before entering the focus phase.
What we bring with us from these 3 days are a few principles you can always adapt to your life, regardless of your professional background:
领英推荐
The breath phase brought us to many side adventures in small villages of the island but those are stories for another time.
With our minds and souls at rest, as a group, we were ready to kick off the focus phase, the core part of Decelera.
The focus phase
The focus phase is a time that we could recall as having lasted 1 day or 1 year, it’s that typical time-lapse where so many things happen so fast that you have a distorted sense of time. In a nutshell, the focus phase consists of throwing as many different perspectives, stories, and inspirations at you so it’s inevitable that you will re-consider or question entirely the business you are running. Can I also do this? Could I maybe optimize performance if I do that? Am I making the same mistake? Those are some of the questions that popped up in your mind.
We got to listen first and then ask for advice in 1-to-1 sessions to exceptional entrepreneurs ranging from the early employees of US tech companies like Mailchimp or Sendgrind to recently founded European unicorns. It’s completely out of the ordinary to spend quality time with incredible entrepreneurs who are usually too busy to even answer an email, imagining dedicating hours of their time (all of this while wearing flip-flops and swimsuits).
We could go on with listing the amazing speakers and mentors we’ve met, but it’s better to invest these lines in some of the reflections we got from those exchanges, as you can notice they are all scattered in the same way we have experienced them.
On organization and people… we got reminded about the importance of values and principles that are genuine to the founders. There is no universal right or wrong when it comes to the culture you want to build as an entrepreneur only the one that is right for you based on where you want to steer the ship and the type of people you want to have around. We particularly loved Alvaro Dexeus' story because of his vulnerability and openness and the example of leadership he brought.
On scaling internationally… with Bernat from Factorial, we dived deeper into the challenges of scaling from 2 to 10+ countries at the same time and how a sales-led model allows you to better control the unit economics in comparison to a product-led model where you don’t own the inputs for growth. It has been inspiring to see how investing in organic content (podcast, SEO, etc.) can pay in the long run, the sooner you start the better, so stay tuned for what we are about to release in Nova.
A red thread connecting all those stories is that being a successful entrepreneur it’s all about grit and resilience. We know it sounds like a cheap motivational quote, but when you hear it, over and over, from people who today are considered among the most successful tech entrepreneurs, how they multiple times saved the company from bankruptcy, or how far they had to stretch to keep things floating, it gets real. Being at Decelera was a reality check, a good complement to those headlines that we read every week about multi-million funding rounds.
We hardly read “ Company X successfully raised €20M, they were about to go bankrupt one week ago”, it all feels like a successful smooth ride from the start to the end. We heard about people suddenly having to deal with the potential loss of a family member while in the process of selling their company as well as the tough decision of killing or maintaining a “cockroach company” (a Silicon Valley term for a once-promising startup now able to just pay its bills but not able to grow).
All in all, we are very grateful for the 30+ mentors we have been meeting during the program, each sharing their perspectives on specific challenges. On one hand, we got a lot of energy when great entrepreneurs validated our choices and celebrated our victories but most importantly lots of ideas that are already in the process of being implemented at Nova.
The growth phase
This last phase has been a short one, with just a couple of days to wrap up ideas and work on our pitches before presenting on the final day of Decelera. Here we had the opportunity to experience, once more, the importance of having a support group of peers that are ready to share experiences and complete your perspective on things, at Decelera they call it workstations, at Nova we will call them “Trusted Circles”, for all our members, keep your hears open for some exciting news about this (no spoiler for now).
The growth phase has left us all empowered and inspired so we can bring the inspiration back to our organizations and teams, share our reflections, and steer things in a better direction. It also allowed us to bond with all the other participants in a way that we all know we can count on each other even beyond the deadline of the program. A big value of Decelera is to leave the island feeling that your support network has grown tremendously in both quality and quantity and that you can now genuinely rely on people who are smarter than you tackling similar challenges in different sectors.
Bringing it all together, we are thankful for those 10 days of reflection, focus, and growth that Decelera has created and we encourage any entrepreneur out there to keep their eyes open for the next edition, we can assure you is worthwhile and it’s a once in a lifetime experience. The list of names of all the people we would like to thank is too long for this format, so for this time we stop here.
As usual thanks for reading and if you have any further questions about the program reach out.
Thanks for reading Talent First. If you liked this issue, don't forget to hit ??
We would be grateful if you?share it by email or social media?with other people who might like it or who might be looking to hire top talent.