Intro:

On this episode of Future of Tech, we speak to Chris Byers, CEO of Formstack. In 2010, Chris stepped in to lead Formstack as CEO for six months. Twelve years later, Chris has not only remained CEO, but the company has grown to 220 employees around the world and recently started fundraising at a billion dollar valuation.

In this conversation, Chris discusses Formstack’s focus on intuitive, easy-to-use, no-code solutions. Plus we dive into Chris’s experiences and lessons learned as a CEO, as well as his advice for new CEOs.

Enjoy this conversation.

Main Takeaways:

• Evolution of Formstack: Chris dives into the evolution of Formstack and its journey as a startup, getting detailed about the work that the company does and its vision for the future.
• The Value of Fast Simplicity: Chris discusses Formstack’s intent to provide a no-code solution that is easy to learn. The company’s goal is for any individual contributor in any department to be able to figure out whether they can solve their problem on Formstack within 30 seconds.
• Chris’s Thoughts on Company Culture: Chris discusses company culture: how it has seasons, how it changes with remote work and what he thinks about when building culture at Formstack.
• Chris’s Advice for New CEOs: Chris shares his tips for new CEOs, as well as his experience stepping into the CEO role at a startup and a mistake he feels that he’s made throughout his leadership.

Key Quotes:

(19:41) “...culture still works in phases and seasons. I think the culture, even that I built from say seven people to let's call it 50, actually had to change.There was a moment in time and I've seen this happen a couple different times, moments in time where we're no longer getting the results that we once were getting. And that ultimately goes back to culture. Are we hiring the right people and promoting the right people?”

(23:09) “I think our ability to succeed over time will always be because we make decisions that don't look like the next big software business. We make our own unique decisions that are innovative, that are different and maybe even cause people in those early days to be like, ‘wait, what are you doing? This doesn't make any sense to me.’”

(44:16) “...as we are in a remote environment, it's a different skillset to kind of build comradery across video, which is where so much of life now takes place. And so you're starting to have to find people who can engage that way.”

(45:38) “...one of the mistakes that I probably continue to make over and over and over again is I move too slow when something is not going well. I think as leaders, we often can quickly identify that a project isn't going well, a team member isn't working out and we are compassionate and we're empathetic. And so it makes us too patient, I think at times, and we put too much stock into the person that we're dealing with when we forget if a person is kind of failing their team or failing the organization, it's not just this one to one relationship that's kind of challenged, they're causing this challenge to like grow and grow and grow across the organization.”

(47:43) “If you're in peace time, I think the team is always the most important. Sometimes you're in something more like war time, where things are chaotic and nothing is as usual, the economy is in a weird place. And sometimes if somebody's being successful, I think you let 'em run. But in the long term, I'd say it always comes back to that ability to work with the team. The ability to kind of work together is the most important thing.”