Running On the High Road

The on-demand economy is a race to take over the world and Racers have temptations to take shortcuts because the stakes are high. Some of these shortcuts are smart and accelerate companies, like Airbnb’s early Craigslist growth hack. Others are shortsighted and erode the DNA of a company, like some companies’ approach to 1099 employment. Starbucks is a great example of a company that has taken the high road.

Starbucks CEO,Howard Schultz: "We spend more on health care than coffee"

Starbucks is a customer service company that happens to sell coffee. Managed by Q, our latest investment, has a similar view and has distanced itself from the pack with its holistic view towards employment. We believe that this is the mentality of the high road.

This is the high road

The high road is sometimes faster even if the road looks longer. Adventure racers are taught to stick to the trail, because over long stretches it proves to be faster versus a climb through the bush even if the objective appears tantalizingly close. It’s tempting because you can often see where you want to go, but the path matters.

MBQ automates many of the fundamental functions of operating a physical office space. They provide cleaning services, handyman services, and replenish office supplies. These are all tasks that few people want to deal with, but are integral to maintaining a happy, smoothly running office. It’s a magical experience when your whole office is running on MBQ. With MBQ, the daily burden of office management tasks is now done by someone whose sole focus is to make the lives of employees easier. MBQ has constructed an entire product and operation around making your most thankless office tasks suck less.

The key to Q’s success is their team of operators. They perform the same cleaning and handyman services that conventional office services firms perform, but the key difference is that they are W2 employees who are empowered with a career path, employee benefits, and are valued members of the team. The result is they care, solve problems, and are integral to the success and improvement of the Q product and service. In fact, everybody at the company participates in office cleaning, executives and operators alike, so that they all know the process. That way the ethos of the company is engrained throughout all members of the company. Now that’s what I call Leadership (yes, with a capital L).

Q’s clients receive an exceptional level of service that no one else in the industry comes close to delivering. One of Greycroft’s portfolio CEOs told me that one of Q’s operators was cleaning his office while he was working on a recent Saturday, and the operator offered to make him a fresh pot of coffee. He said he almost fell out of his chair. Another CEO who I introduced to Managed by Q called me two weeks later to personally thank me for introducing him to the service. Similarly, I almost fell out of my chair…

This is the magic of the high road. When you do what is right and don’t take short cuts, people reward you and do an exceptional job.

We have a number of portfolio companies who have chosen this path. One example is Plated, which has a fulfillment center in the poorest congressional district in the country and employs homeless veterans through the Jericho Project. Another example is Boxed, where Chieh Huang, the CEO, has pledged part of his stock to pay the college tuition for employees’ children.

Support on the Journey

Others share our enthusiasm for the company and we are pleased to have an exceptional group of investors to help support MBQ on its journey including Steve Schlafman from RRE, Satya Patel from Homebrew, Sherpa Ventures, SV Angel and Steadfast Financial, alongside Gary Vaynerchuk, Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, Semil Shah, Jessica Alba, Bjarke Ingels, and Commissioner Emeritus of the NBA, David Stern.

I’m thrilled to be running on the the high road in support of MBQ’s mission. At this company, everybody cleans, and my first clean is next week.