Mission Daily

“Don't obsess about the fact that you don't always understand what the next step is.” — Jay Fulcher Today, Chad sits down with Jay Fulcher, CEO and chairman of Zenefits which offers cloud based software as a service for companies to better manage their human resources. Having learned the ropes of leadership by being a serial entrepreneur and CEO, he was brought on to lead Zenefits in 2017 after the company had suffered from internal issues and infamously grew too quickly. Jay decided to flip this situation upside down and created a brand new business model and leadership team. Zenefits to this day has become one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in history and has created a value of 4.5 billion dollars in six years.  “We’ve worked hard at building this very tightly integrated, interoperable platform, a single code base that a customer knows when they do business with Zenefits, all of the applications are going to look and behave the same way,” says Jay. “The employee experience is not going to be good, it's going to be phenomenal.” From being the CEO of Agile software to the CEO of OOyala, Jay has an extensive track record for bringing in great returns and driving growth in the companies he has served. Jay continues to serve as an advisor for other startups making their break into the tech industry.  On this episode of Mission Daily, Jay shares the guiding principle he looks for in a company he chooses to be a part of, the importance of being committed to a growth mindset, and how to build a company that is resilient. — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right!  Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“People think that when you start a company that it is this immensely risky thing but the upside is so disproportionately higher if you just looked at it from an expected value standpoint. Worst case scenario your company fails and you go to work for a McKinsey or something similar.” — John Arrow Today, Chad is joined by John Arrow, CEO of Mutual Mobile, an agency that designs and develops breakthrough digital applications for the Fortune 1000. As a freshman at the University of Texas, John joined the aviation community and discovered his passion for flying. It was also within this program that he met four friends who would become the co-founders of Mutual Mobile.  “One of my passions is flying airplanes where you're forced to multitask. There's no other way to do it. Even if you have the autopilot on, you have to be scanning the instruments or talking to the radio or planning what's ahead. I think you can do things better when you can spread out your attention because it avoids that burnout.” Starting Mutual Mobile has completely changed his life. John has emerged as one of the most promising young CEOs in the past decade, being named to Forbes list of Top 30 CEOs Under 30. Mutual Mobile was named by Forbes as one of America's most promising companies in 2011 and has since produced award-winning apps for Google, Audi, Cisco, and many more. On this episode, John discusses how to create a work environment primed for innovation and creativity, how to succeed within the app-building world, and his goals for the future of Mutual Mobile. — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right!  Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Today, Ian is joined by Chris Hsu, a West Point graduate, an Army veteran, and now CEO of Zibo, a digital financial services platform that provides individual landlords banking, insurance and payment services. Prior to founding Zibo and post-military, Chris held roles as Executive Vice President for Hewlett Packard and a Senior Vice President at HP. He also served as a top executive in private equity for six years, during which he advised entrepreneurs and led turnaround efforts at companies including Dollar General, U.S. Foodservice and Del Monte Foods. “I grew an unbelievable admiration for them [entrepreneurs] and what they had done. Entrepreneurship is not about the idea, it is about taking the idea and shaping it into something that actually works, building a company and a culture and being able to pivot and push through those things that are remarkably challenging,” says Chris.  On this episode, Ian and Chris discuss what it was like leaving the military, how Chris’ time in the service prepared him for the corporate world and how he went on to have success in private equity, where he advised start-ups, to now running his own company, Zibo.  — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right!  Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“Have a plan, but don't have it so rigorous that you miss opportunities. Don't let people talk you out of what your gut thinks is the right thing.” — Mark Testoni Today, Chad is joined by Mark Testoni CEO of SAP NS2. At the age of 20, Mark worked as a high school janitor but decided to turn the page and join the Air Force. He served in the military for 20 years, and since retiring , Mark has become an active spokesperson on veteran’s issues, discussing the importance of believing in yourself and building confidence.  “Confidence builds on itself. One of the things we have to do as leaders is to create situations for the people around us, whether they are family members, employees, colleagues at work, to have the opportunity to succeed and in some cases fail and overcome those tactical failures.” In 2013, Mark was the driving force behind the creation of NS2 Serves, an organization that provides technology training and employment assistance for veterans. He has helped 237 veterans graduate and be placed in high-tech careers, with another 100 projected to complete the program in 2019. His primary focus is on management, sales, consulting, product support, cloud-delivered applications and infrastructure, and go-to-market strategy.  On this episode of Mission Daily, Chad and Mark discuss the importance of leaders having empathy, how to mitigate your weaknesses by surrounding yourself with the right people, and a few key takeaways on how NS2 has grown rapidly.   — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Today, Chad is joined by Alex MacCaw, founder and CEO of Clearbit. Alex’s road to entrepreneurship was anything but conventional. Having taught himself programming at a young age, he dropped out of high school at the age of 17 to pursue a full-time career as a software engineer. Living in the London, Alex had intentions to get his visa and move to San Francisco to start his own company. But when he encountered a few roadblocks along the way, he took the opportunity to travel through south-east Asia and South America and wrote two successful books on programming along the way.  He built a remarkable portfolio and big tech companies took notice. Eventually, Twitter offered Alex a job, and from there he was able to pursue his dream of moving to the United States. Shortly afterward, he joined Stripe, working on their product team to create some of the core features that the company is built upon today. But he was yearning for something more and knew it was time to fully self actualize.  “I felt like I had a lot of self-growth to do. I had little idea of the amount of self-growth, but I knew there was something there. So, I wanted to try and start a company, something much bigger and use that to self-actualize,” says Alex. After starting a successful lifestyle company called Sourcing.io and selling it off, Alex decided to go big and started his current company, Clearbit. Clearbit is a marketing data engine that combines public and private data sources to allow companies to truly understand their customers and sales interactions. On this episode of Mission Daily, Alex shares more details about his path to founding Clearbit, his philosophy of building a fun culture within the company, and the importance of keeping your employees happy and motivated. — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Chad and Ian are joined by Bill Draper and Pitch Johnson, both of whom were instrumental in starting venture capital in the early 1960’s, shaping the industry even to this day. Bill and Pitch first met at Inland Steel in the late 1950s, instantly becoming friends and forming a lifelong personal and professional relationship. Both Bill and Pitch decided to leave the steel mill to form Draper and Johnson Investment Group which would later became Sutter Hill Ventures. Pitch went on to start Asset Management Group in 1965 and it is still in operation today. Both Bill and Pitch have incredible track records for success in investing in the right entrepreneurs at the right time and advising them along the way.  On this episode of Mission Daily, Bill and Pitch share their background, what it was like breaking into venture capital, and how the industry has changed over the years. — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“You are building features that your customers need right here, right now. You educate them on what can be done and the art of the possible. Then, you execute way better than your competitors. That's it.” — Amr Awadallah Today, Stephanie is joined by Amr Awadallah, co-founder and Global Chief Technology Officer of Cloudera. Amr is fondly called the “geek from Egypt” as he migrated from Egypt and has a passion for computer science. Living in Egypt, Amr never aspired to become an entrepreneur; it wasn’t until he moved to the United States and graduated from college that mindset changed. After taking a leave of absence from Stanford, Amr started his first successful company, Viva Smart, which he later sold to Yahoo.  Amr joined Yahoo to learn the ropes of a corporate setting and eventually was running one of the very first organizations to use Apache Hadoop for data analysis and business intelligence. Once Amr had experienced the difference Hadoop had made when testing it out with his team, he knew this was a great opportunity to start another company, thus creating, Cloudera. On this episode of Mission Daily, Stephanie and Amr sit down to discuss the problems AI is solving on a daily basis, his journey from Egypt to the US, and launching his two companies.  — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“I think an entrepreneurial spirit is within somebody.” — Michele Bolos  Today, Chad is joined by Michele Bolos, founder and CEO of NT Concepts, a leading national security solution provider applying AI and machine learning to help strengthen the operations of government agencies such as the Department of Defense. Michele built the business by staying lean and cultivating an employee culture of innovation. Her company has lived through two recessions, the tech bust of 2000 and the national recession in 2008, as well as several government shutdowns. How did she do it? Michele would give most of the credit to her team but it was also due to the key financial decisions Michele made through the good times, constantly saving and keeping the company's focus on the customer.   “We grew very quickly in a short amount of time, but I could see the bubble was going to burst. I could just feel it,” says Michele. “And so for the first seven years we did 100% private industry and then I decided to diversify into the government sector, which is not an easy nut to crack.” Prior to founding NT Concepts, Michele worked as an independent consultant for companies such as Mobil Oil, Talus Corporation, and API/WANG Global, where she led complex software engineering efforts for commercial and federal marketplaces. Michele was also a system engineer for Alfa-Laval Thermal. On this episode of Mission Daily, Michele talks about the genesis of NT Concepts, how she managed to carry her company through not one but two recessions and the importance of being a servant leader. — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

On today’s episode of Mission Daily, Chad shares what we’ve been working on at Mission.org and how we are building culture. Courage and forgiveness are two of our values at Mission, guiding our culture every day. Chad explains, “courage is in really short supply right now and it always has been. It is the most valuable currency.”  In our upcoming episodes, Chad will be sharing more on Mission’s company culture from courage and forgiveness to voluntaryism. We will share military leadership stories and feature many more incredible guests. Stay tuned! In the meantime, share Mission Daily with a friend or two. We are coming back with more exciting content for you shortly! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“I have always firmly believed that work should have a higher purpose.” — Lenny Stein  Lenny Stein, SVP of Global Affairs at Splunk, heads up Splunk’s global corporate, government affairs and social impact initiatives including Splunk for Good, an “effort to identify means and work with groups that can use the power of data to improve the human condition.” Partners of Splunk for Good include The Global Emancipation Network, with whom Splunk is helping to try to put an end to human trafficking.  Prior to joining Splunk eight years ago, Lenny received his law degree at Harvard and went into private practice with a focus on public policy. He worked with the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board and was a staff member on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Through all of this experience, Lenny has discovered the importance of work going beyond serving the individual’s needs.  “I have always firmly believed that work should have a higher purpose,” Lenny says.In addition to providing a source of income and sustenance, work should provide the opportunity to leave the world in a better position than we found it. And I have constantly found that a higher purpose animating a corporate environment makes all the difference between what a company can achieve and what it can’t.” On this episode, Chad and Lenny discuss the three main focus areas of Splunk for Good — disaster relief, cybersecurity and job training — the partners Splunk is working with in these areas, and why Lenny believes work should always have a higher purpose.  — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/