Uncle Rasmussen - The Mentor

This is one of those articles that hits close to the heart for me. In this world of detached employer/employee relationships, I hope this article helps bring back some of the lifelong bonds that are created in the workplace. For me, that relationship is with Solver's Founder and CEO, Nils Rasmussen. I consider him a mentor, a lifelong friend, and basically family at this point (fingers crossed on that inheritance money). With all joking aside, Nils has been the most important person in my professional life.

I joined Solver over 10 years ago, transitioning from the media industry. Nils, unlike executives in the entertainment industry, immediately intimidated me with intellect rather than ego. And he lived up to the intimidation, randomly walking by my desk when I was a junior consultant and intensely drilling me over the product after a few days on the job. I completely fumbled through all the questions and was convinced it was my last day at Solver. Then, Nils decided to give me the most intense project: redesigning the most difficult template in Solver, literally called the "monster report." This was completely outside the scope of my job. I spent nights without sleeping trying to put together this seemingly impossible report. When I told my direct manager at the time, he laughed and said it was just Nils being Nils, and that I shouldn't have taken it so seriously. For the record, I did get the report to work, and I don't think Nils even checked it.

As a consultant, I would try things to get Nils' attention by offering to do things outside the scope of my work. I still remember when he took me up on the offer, and I spent every weekend for several months taping trainings and proudly being the face of Solver training videos. Through this, I did get more facetime with Nils and started spending more time with him.

I then moved to pre-sales and learned how to talk about the product in sales by shadowing his calls. I'd stay late, ask him strategic questions, and propose solutions. Whenever I visited his office, I always had three possible solutions ready and shared my preferred choice to show I thought things through. Even though he often suggested a different solution, he appreciated the effort, and it demonstrated that I was considerate of his time.

Nils gave me an opportunity to be wrong and helped me learn technology. I developed an innate passion for the software industry because I was allowed to experiment.

Doing well in pre-sales and thinking that I was on a roll, Nils again drilled me during a conference about competitors. I didn't know a bunch of the answers and again fumbled through my responses. I spent all weekend researching, and after the conference, I came to his office armed with research to make it clear that next time I'm asked, I'll know the competitors inside out and won't make the same mistake. My focus was to show Nils that I'm accountable. I also wanted to be respectful of all the time he was spending on me, and my way of showing that was to not make the same mistake. We talked earlier about experimentation; I think Nils gave me autonomy and let me make mistakes because I didn’t make them twice.

All of this built my confidence, and quite frankly, my career really started to take off – as sales attested. This also led to an opportunity to travel with Nils, where I would shadow him as Solver opened up international offices. The periods in between these work meetings during these trips are essentially when I learned most of what I know about the software business.

Ultimately, after over 6 years at Solver, I wanted to learn how an established/leading SaaS company works and moved to Netsuite. I practiced what I wanted to tell Nils around 100 times, memorizing my dialogue. I emphasized that it wasn't negotiation, but I still expected him to be very angry, thinking he might see me as disloyal after he had given me this opportunity. To my surprise, he completely understood and was totally supportive of my next chapter.

Since that time, I've kept in touch with Nils on a regular basis. I think the personal relationship developed on a level where I was super transparent because he was no longer my boss. I regularly met with him to talk SaaS, and we did hikes to talk life. Nils has been instrumental in pushing me into entrepreneurship, and I can't even explain how many hours he spent with me conceptualizing 3PA.

I know this was long, but it felt good writing that. Now to make this article more relevant to others, below are some of the lessons that I learned.

1.???? The very basics for entrepreneurship. Passion, highs/lows, intensity, and super hard work. It’s one thing to read about this stuff in some article, but seeing it firsthand on a daily basis really made me understand and appreciate the sacrifice. Every day he brought it, and there really were no days off. And no stepping off the gas. He has been at it for a long time but single-handedly bootstrapped a successful company with hundreds of employees and very strong ARR.

2.???? Leadership is setting the tone. As a bootstrapped company, frugality was in Solver’s DNA. Nils led by example. He would only fly economy. He would share a room during conferences. In terms of work ethic, he would almost always be the last one in the office (well, not including me of course). When the marketing person screwed up hotels for the entire team, Nils stayed at a drug-infested motel while letting others stay in nicer accommodations. This was the culture, and even 20 years in, this is how he operated. When he got upgraded on flights (all the time), he always gave up his ticket to travel in economy with his team. Borrowing from Ben Horowitz , your actions define who you are, and for Nils, there was complete alignment between the actions and the person.

3.???? Think with your nugget. I remember a conversation where Nils’ mentioned that an executive made a mistake because they weren't using their head. As simple as that sounds, he gave me freedom to use my brain. Many folks starting their careers at a big company won’t have an opportunity to do this. You follow rules that are set by your manager's manager. At times, these are thought out, but often they are just passed down for no real reason.

4.???? Lead genuinely. He didn’t manipulate. A lot of people build a culture of super hard work and loyalty only to reap the benefits themselves in an exit. Nils hasn’t exited with ample opportunity. He genuinely lives and breathes this stuff. After spending a considerable amount of time with him, I can confidently say he always does the right thing, even when it's tough and doesn't benefit him.

5.???? Do it your way. He bootstrapped even though there were plenty of options available for raising – all of Solver’s primary competitors raised a lot of money. He told a previous employee exactly why they were getting fired because it was the right thing to do, ignoring HR/legal advice. He treated people like he wanted to be treated. This inspired me to have the courage to chart my own path and consistently do what I believe is right, as I looked up to the guy.

6.???? Learn from other people’s mistakes. This one is tricky because I also learned lessons from watching his mistakes. My grandfather always told me to learn from other people's mistakes – he told me that super smart people learn from other people’s mistakes, smart people learn from their own, and idiots don’t learn. Wanting to be in the first category, I also observed what not to do and learned lessons from that. My personality is quite similar to Nils, and by evaluating mistakes along with their second-order impacts, I'll be able to avoid making similar mistakes at my own company.

7.???? Enjoy your management team. If you’re in it for the long term, don’t forget you should enjoy spending time with the people you work with.

8.???? First and foremost, be a decent person. While I was already prewired to be empathetic, working for Nils gave me both the privilege and confidence to execute on it. I saw Nils give up both of our first-class tickets (upgrades, of course) to elderly people because it would bring them more joy. He would always stop and do small things to help people.

9. Step up. Since we are on the plane subject, he made it clear that if a terrorist tried to take over the plane, we would be the ones to take him down. Don’t rely on other people to take the main lead. Do it.

10. Business is war. At the end of the day, software is highly competitive – everyone likes 80%+ margins. Luckily, I was with Nils before the B2B SaaS boom from 2018 to 2022, so I got to experience some of the war. Traveling and working with a general who thinks steps ahead was truly fantastic. It was also fun fighting together against companies flushed with capital, where you really had to think outside the box. It taught me how to strategically maneuver, plan moves effectively, and navigate the battlefield.

Bonus Lesson: Leading with optimism is a must. Nils stayed super optimistic, and that energy really transferred. He always absorbed the bad news and stays positive for the team. That positivity motivated the team, selling partners and everyone in the ecosystem. For me, I developed the ability to embrace the problem with optimism, rather than feeling intimidated or complaining about it.

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Summary:

Working for Nils was tough; he had high expectations for excellence but it was the best experience of my professional life. I learned many of the lessons during long conversations and in between the actual day-to-day work. Nils' passion for B2B software is so ingrained in him that he can easily go off-topic and engage in lengthy discussions for hours. Not everyone likes it, but I learned a lot from these talks. He refines his ideas by discussing them from different angles, and traveling with him let me see that.

But here's the thing: I'm really thankful to Nils, but I also earned his guidance. It didn't just happen by chance. I got his advice by showing initiatives, learning and getting results for him.

Nils will likely remain a significant presence in my life, and his guidance plays a crucial role in both my personal and professional development. I am thrilled to consider him a friend and mentor. To anyone reading this, I strongly encourage you to cultivate a mentor/mentee relationship with someone you respect and trust. It's the stuff life is made of.