224: Mike McDerment, CEO Of FreshBooks - Lead With Trust

Sep 24, 2017

Mike McDerment, co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, shares his journey from a basement startup to leading a top cloud accounting software company. He emphasizes the importance of leading with trust and cultivating a values-driven culture. Mike discusses first-principles thinking for problem-solving and how FreshBooks’ nine core values guide their success. He highlights the significance of perseverance, openness in company culture, and the benefits of a long onboarding process to foster empathy. Plus, he normalizes imposter syndrome as a growth experience.

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INSIGHT

Shared Values Drive Sustained Excellence

Sustained excellence comes from having been through hard experiences and holding strong values.
Surrounding yourself with creative, excellent people accelerates growth and resilience.

INSIGHT

First Principles Unlock Creative Solutions

First principles means breaking problems into component parts and rebuilding from fundamentals.
Appearing naive can force creative solutions because you aren't constrained by prior best practices.

ANECDOTE

Saved Invoice Sparked FreshBooks

Mike saved over an invoice in 2003 and built a billing tool for his own freelance work.
That side project grew into FreshBooks after others adopted the product.

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Mike McDerment is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world's #1 cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Built in 2003 after he accidentally saved over an invoice, Mike spent 3.5 years growing FreshBooks from his parents' basement. Since then, over 10 million people have used FreshBooks to save time billing, and collect billions of dollars.

The Learning Leader Show

"We give trust to earn trust. Lead with trust. That's the world I want to live in."

Show Notes:

Sustained Excellence. Common Themes of Leaders who Sustain Excellence:
- Been through something hard
- Strong morals - set of values, make upstanding decisions, believe in people, don't compromise
- Creative
- Surround self with great people
- Strong desire to grow
- Default Trust to "ON"
First Principles -- Distill things down to underlying system: The act of taking a problem and breaking it down
Building FreshBooks -- "I didn't know anything about anything."
The #1 place to work -- have won awards for their culture
What do you do? "We are in the business of saving people time."
Moving to his parents basement to start the business... Running lean
Culture takes deliberate thought
- Must have people who are diverse but share your values
- Need guidelines/rule sets
The 9 Values:
- Passion - Love your craft
- Ownership
- Results
- Change - Bring learning and growth
- Honesty
- Fun - Deliberately make it fun
- Empathy
- Strive - Stretch
- Trust
- Secrecy - Open inside, but nothing leaves from inside
Values/Culture used in 2 ways
- Publicly recognize people living the values
- Swiftly eliminate people who don't embody those values - Listen, hear, be open. Recognize that cultures need to be hacked, evolve, change.
Inner office dating? Why is that promoted? What does it mean?
Everyone spends the first month in customer service. All build that foundation -- Why they prolong onboarding and how that leads to long term success
Make decisions today to win in 3-5 years
Decided to re-platform even though the rule is to "never re-write or re-platform"
"How do you minimize risk, but maximize impact?"
"Something that no one had ever done before. Create a new company in secret."
Lead with trust: "We give trust to earn trust. Lead with trust. That's the world I want to live in."
Imposter Syndrome and FEAR. Embracing it
"Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable" -- It's the path to growth. Nobody has all of the answers
Advice to 20 year old -- He was lost, not doing well. Realize that everyone else is too. Nobody knows what they are doing even if it looks like they do."
Read -- E Myth (Michael Gerber), Idea Virus (Seth Godin), Execution (Ram Charan)
Learning Leader -- Per Mike, "That's me." The challenge & personal growth.

"How do you minimize risk and maximize impact?"

Social Media:

Read: Execution - Ram Charan
Follow Mike on Twitter: @MikeMcDerment
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community
To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

More Learning:

Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon

Episode 216: Jim Collins -- How To Go From Good To Great

Episode 179: How To Sustain Excellence - The Best Answers From 178 Questions

Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why

Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell