20VC: 7 Key Themes To Building A Great Company To IPO, The Right Way To Assess Market Timing & How To Balance Between Speed and Inspection When It Comes To Decision-Making with Patrick Morley, CEO @ Carbon Black

Patrick Morley is the President and CEO @ Carbon Black, the company that combines unfiltered data collection, predictive analytics, and cloud-based delivery to provide superior endpoint protection. Prior to their IPO in April 2018, Carbon Black had raised over $150m in VC funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, Accomplice, Kleiner Perkins and Highland Venture Partners just to name a few. As for Patrick, under his leadership, he has taken Carbon Black from startup to market leader with over 800 employees. Before Carbon Black, he was CEO of Imprivata Corporation and held senior leadership positions with six venture-backed software companies, including three that had successful IPOs. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Patrick made his way into the world of startups and came to be CEO @ Carbon Black where he turned a startup into a public company and market leader with 800 employees? 2.) Patrick has previously said "there are 7 key themes to building a great company", what are those themes? From taking 4 companies public what are the patterns in building a business the right way? How does Patrick look to create a culture of accountability but also with a risk-taking mentality? How does one retain startup culture with scale? 3.) How does Patrick view his role as CEO today? What 3 characteristics do all great CEOs need to embody and then act on? Would Patrick agree that some people are destined for certain stages of a company's life? How does Patrick determine between a stretch and a stretch too far in a VP? What does that subsequent communication look like? 4.) Mike Dauber @ Amplify previously said on the show "timing kills more startups than dollars", would Patrick agree with this? How does he view market timing? What advice would Patrick give to founders who are 3-4 years ahead in market? What are the challenges? What are the right ways to communicate the path to timing it right? 5.) Why did Patrick choose this year to take Carbon Black public? What are the fundamental pros and cons of being a public company today? How does Patrick assess the role that VCs played in the building of Carbon Black to IPO? What must investors always remember in their interactions with founders? What must founders be cognizant of when selecting their investors and board members? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Patrick’s Fave Book: Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  I am very excited to say it's that time of the week. It's Founder's Friday here on the 20 Minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. I would love to hear your thoughts on future guests and questions you'd like to hear me ask. You can do that on Instagram at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs. It really would be great to see you there. But to the show today, and if you remember our episode with Jeff Fagin at Accomplice, for everyone that listened intently, you will remember his mentioning the incredible Carbon Black journey from idea to IPO earlier this year. Well, today I'm thrilled to be joined by Patrick Morley, President and CEO at Carbon Black, the company that combines unfiltered data collection, predictive analytics and cloud-based delivery to provide superior endpoint protection. Prior to their IPO in April 2018, Carbon Black had raised over $150 million in VC funding

• 0:43Harry Stebbings?

  from the likes of Sequoia Capital, Accomplice, Kleiner Perkins and Highland Venture Partners, just to name a few. As for Patrick, under his leadership, he took Carbon Black from startup to market leader with over 800 employees. And before Carbon Black, he was CEO of Improvata Corporation and held senior leadership positions with six venture-backed software companies, including three that had successful IPOs. And I do also have to say a huge thank you to the main man Jeff Fagin at Accomplice for the intro to Patrick's today. I really do so appreciate that, Jeff. However, before we welcome Patrick to the hot seat today, I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex, the first corporate card for startups. Brex founders Henrique and Pedro built a payments business in Brazil, but found themselves rejected for a corporate card when they were in Y Combinator.

• 1:25Harry Stebbings?

  They decided to build Brex with instant online signup, no founder liability and limits 10 to 20 times higher than standard cards. Pretty incredible, I know. And you can sign up for Brex and get card fees waived by entering the code HARRY during signup. Honestly, it truly is a special service. And with Brex in place, we now need a team to really use them. And that's where Terminal comes in. Terminal is a startup that appreciates hiring amazing developers is hard. Plus, it's much harder if you're looking only in a 25 mile radius of your office. So Terminal is your dedicated partner in rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams. How do they deliver both speed and quality? Well, Terminal does this by focusing on everything necessary to successfully source, set up and support these teams. From physical elements like beautiful workspaces and equipment to ongoing resources like AI.

• 2:10Harry Stebbings?

  HR, payroll, legal, professional learning and development. But don't take my word for this. Take the word of Eventbrite, former 20 VC guest Hims and Dialpad, all customers and lovers of Terminal. And you can find out more today at terminal.io. Finally, now we have the team in place as a founder or operator. Your next crucial job is people operations. It could be hiring execs, developing managers, retaining top talent and building a high performing culture. And that's why you need Lattice. Lattice is the number one people management solution for growing companies, helping companies like Asana, Reddit and Cruise build a strong company culture. And with Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 reviews, share ongoing feedback, facilitate one-on-one, set up goal tracking and even run employee engagement surveys. And Lattice is the only solution that combines both performance management and employee engagement.

• 2:54Harry Stebbings?

  So operators can really make sure their top performers are happy. And Lattice is giving away three months of Lattice free to 20 VC listeners. Just go to lattice.com/20vc. That's L A T T I C E dot com forward slash two zero VC. Build an award winning culture with Lattice, the number one people management solution. But that's quite enough of these dreary British tones. And so now I'm thrilled to hand over to Patrick Morley, President and CEO at Carbon Black.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 3:28Harry Stebbings?

  Patrick, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. I've heard so many wonderful things from Jeff at Acorn Plus. So thank you so much for joining me today, Patrick.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  Harry, thanks for inviting me on.

• 3:36Harry Stebbings?

  No, not at all, but I'd love to kick off today with a little on you and how you came to be CEO of the now publicly listed Carbon Black.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Well, I came, I've been at Carbon Black for 10 years and I knew some of the initial investors in Carbon Black. And I really liked the vision of the company, the original vision of the company, which was very simple, which was that the current model in security was broken and that we had an opportunity to kind of change the world with a different vision on how security should be done. And that's why I came.

• 4:05Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, that's a very compelling vision, but I do want to start on the building of the great company that Carbon Black is today. Because we spoke before and you said that there's seven themes to building a great company. And very kindly, you left me on that cliffhanger. So I'd love to start today. With that, what are those seven themes, Patrick?

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Well, when you look at building a company, my experience, I've spent the last 25-plus years helping to build and scale a variety of different startups and have been fortunate enough to be part of five teams that have brought companies public, including Carbon Black. And throughout all of those experiences, you see patterns, same way that VCs see patterns, we as operators see patterns on how do you build a company right and how can you get it wrong? And we obviously learn more when we see things not done well. And so when I talk to new employees in the company, I talk to them about seven core characteristics of building a great company. And they're quite simple, and many of these are the things that we learned growing up and the things that we learned in different experiences at different companies.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  And they go like this, number one, you need to have a shared vision and mission on what you're trying to accomplish inside of a company so that all of your team members are aligned. And it's stunning to me how many companies don't have a shared alignment about what they're trying to achieve. Number two, it's all about the team, it's all about the people, you have to hire great people. We are very focused here at Carbon Black about referral rates because we want great people to refer other great people. So number two, it's all about the team. Number three, no assholes. And my view on assholes is it's all about arrogance. If you put yourself first in front of the team, then the team can't be effective. So that's rule number three, no assholes. Number four is allow your team members to be empowered to run their own business and understand every day why what they do is so important for the company.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Number five is to reduce friction everywhere you can inside the organization. As companies scale, it becomes very challenging to reduce friction, how to keep everyone aligned. So we talk a lot about that inside the company. Six is about leadership. We're looking for people who step into problems, to solve problems. We're looking for people who make recommendations. And leaders are at every stage of the company, every level of the company. It's not just the executive team. And then last and most important, everything we do is against the value that we offer our customers. So in the end, our customers are the lifeblood of the company. They trust our solutions, they trust us as a vendor, and it's critical that we do what's right for them. So those are my seven themes on how you build, my seven characteristics. characteristics on how you build a great company.

• 6:31Harry Stebbings?

  Now, Patrick, I mean, so much to unpack there. The first and the second one that you mentioned there was kind of the team assembly and it being all about the people. I often hear CEOs on the show say that the core role of the CEO is management upscaling. I'm intrigued, would you agree with that as the core role and how do you think about your role today as CEO?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's three core characteristics, three core elements for the CEO. I certainly think one of them is about the people and making sure that you continue to scale the team around you. Absolutely. And by the way, that gets hard because you have to do it quite often. Number two, though, is making sure that you're focused on what the right strategy is for the company and being very clear about it. Because any ambiguity on company strategy causes misalignment farther you go down into the organization. And then the third big component, I think, for a CEO is communications. How you communicate that vision on where you're trying to go and aligning the right people up against that vision. It's a big, big part of the job as CEO.

• 7:27Harry Stebbings?

  In terms of kind of the vision and empowering people, you said about the element of ownership there, kind of owning their compartment or element. How do you think about creating kind of a culture of accountability, but also an inherent risk-taking mindset within each of their compartments?

• 7:42Speaker 02

  The desire to allow people to run your own business, in my belief, their own department, allows people to take more risks. Because if I feel like I truly am empowered to run my business within the constraints of what we're trying to do as a company, within that alignment against our vision and mission. If we truly believe that, then I, as an owner of my business, am willing to take more risks. And it's always a balance on embracing failure, because when you take risks, you fail. And so trying to get that right is always a balance. And sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we don't get it right. That balance of speed, but also inspection. And we try and do that throughout the ranks in the company. And again, sometimes we get it really right and other times not so much.

• 8:24Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, what do you think is the right way to treat and handle failure? Often in the valley, it's the kind of hailed, you know, celebration of failure, almost to the extreme sometimes. How do you think about kind of failure and the right subsequent action?

• 8:36Speaker 02

  I believe, and I think we believe, that understanding what Led you to where you are is such a critical part of it because if you don't really understand the decisions that you made along the way and you don't recognize and and kind of talk openly about it, then you never learn from the experience. And as I said at the beginning, I think you learn more from failure than you do from success. Or you learn more from tough times than you do when everything's just going up into the right. And the only way you learn is to actually kind of go back and truly be open and understanding about what's not working. And so, you know, we try and do that as a team, as a senior team and all the way through the organization. We try and really, when something does not work, to truly understand what was it that was the key decision point?

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Or the key, was it execution? Was it strategy? Was it people? What was the element that allowed us to fail?

• 9:23Harry Stebbings?

  In terms of kind of, we mentioned there a combination of kind of the centrality of team and then elements not working. In some cases, people don't scale with the company and it is a stretch. I'm really interested for you from kind of seeing the scaling and growth of five companies to public company status. What are the signs that maybe a team member or a candidate is a stretch too far?

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Well, here at Carbon Black, I've had the opportunity to work with great people at every stage of the company. And some people don't scale and others choose not to. Some people like the intimacy of smaller organizations and choose to say, I really liked the company when it grew from zero to 20 million or from 20 million to 50 million. And so it's not just people don't scale, it's also their own personal desires for what makes them tick and makes them feel fulfilled. I think the biggest way I think about it is how that manager, how that leader is looking ahead, what his or her vision is for the roadmap ahead. And when you have people, team members, who are reacting as opposed to being proactive about what's coming,

• 10:26Speaker 02

  it becomes very obvious that you're going to have to make a decision to bring someone else in. And by the way, that's a delicate balance because if you're running a great team, then you're all kind of a foxhole together. You're working together day in and day out. And these are really tough decisions as you continue to scale a team. Here at Carbon Black, if you look over the years, I've effectively had three senior teams around me that I've had the opportunity Work with and again appreciate all the work that they've all done, but people are best at certain scales of an organization.

• 10:55Harry Stebbings?

  No, absolutely. I do agree with that. I do have to ask, you mentioned like the element of transition. I'm interested, especially with the culture and how that changes with scale. How do you think about the professionalization and scaling of a firm, especially with culture and maintaining that nimble startup culture with scale?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Well, I think it starts at the top. If you just take what you just asked and you pull it apart, there's two aspects to that. One is how do you do scale? How do you bring scale to an organization without making people feel like we're leaving some of the original team members behind? And again, I think the biggest part on that is how you as a CEO and how the company communicates. If you communicate openly and honestly about why you're making changes that you are, you treat people with respect throughout the process. Driving change from a leadership standpoint, you can do very effectively and you can really allow a team to continue to tick. And then on our ability to actually still stay nimble or agile. Again, I think that's more of a cultural phenomenon and I think a lot of that starts at the top with the executive team at the top.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Balancing making quick decisions, but also understanding that the decisions that you make that are critical. You have to have some soak time and some analysis against those because you don't want to shoot first and aim after. You really want to make sure you have an understanding of why you're doing what. And then you got to pull everyone along with that decision making, whether or not you're doing it fast, whether you're doing a deeper analysis. You got to pull all of your critical constituents along with that process. And that's a big place I see people fail. They'll make critical decisions and then on the communication side and on the alignment side. They don't do a great job of aligning everyone.

• 12:29Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, literally, how does that look? Is that like an all hands meeting and continuous slap messages outlining the message? What does kind of seamless communications across the entire team look like done well?

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's exactly what you've described. I think a great communication starts at the day people kind of enter the company. So if we do new employee orientation for every single employee, I speak at every single new employee orientation. I shake every single new employee's hand and tell them why we're here and what we're all about and what we're trying to achieve. So right from day one, you're Trying to give everyone an understanding of the vision and the mission of the company and what we're trying to achieve. And then as you drive through change, you've got to kind of realign again and again against what we're trying to do. And then you communicate why we're making the changes that we are, whether or not those are strategy changes, personnel changes, the way we're executing. You do it at all hands, you do it again and again. We also do it, we try and do it here prior to the all hands.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  We'll do it with a broader team of managers and directors. So you can kind of think about it as cascading communications. We'll talk about it as an exec team. Then the next level down gets communicated to. We talk about it openly, we get questions and then we do it in all hands. And then you don't just do it on one all hands, you're going to do it again and again. And then I always follow up with written communication to the company on what we're doing and why.

• 13:45Harry Stebbings?

  I love that, especially the ending on written communications. But in terms of kind of communication being that critical element, I do want to take another one that we've slightly touched on before in our chats, being market timing. We had Mike Dauber and Amplify on the show and he said that timing kills more startups than dollars. Would you agree with this? And I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts on kind of market timing per se.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I would agree a hundred percent with that statement. And I, I think a lot of it has to do with the maturity and I'll call it the patience and the persistence of three core teams. You've got the CEO who comes in with an expectation, you have investors who have an expectation, and you've got senior team members who have an expectation. And if at any point, you know, those get out of whack, it really causes a lot of churn. And so you end up in a situation where organizations will make, investors or CEOs will say, hey, look, this is just not happening in the speed. I, I wanted it to and I'm, and I'm done. And then there's big ramifications of that.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  And obviously making those decisions reinforces how important it is that the CEO and that the investors, especially your lead investors, are really, really aligned. Because you can change a lot of other things, but it's challenging to change out a CEO. And it depending on what your investor profile looks like, it's, it's impossible to change out who your investors are for the most part.

• 15:02Harry Stebbings?

  No, it absolutely is, stronger than marriage. But I do have to ask, and, and you know, absolutely no names needed here if not required. When thinking about this. And kind of the importance of market timing. Is there an anecdote or a memory that really comes to mind with a subsequent learning attached to it?

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Well, as I said earlier, I've been at Carbon Black for 10 years and we were early in the market talking about how there had to be a fundamental change on the way that cybersecurity was approached. And when we were first out telling that message about the fact that antivirus doesn't work in its current approach and that there needed to be a totally different approach to this challenge. There were a lot of potential customers who didn't see that issue yet. So we were we were out ahead of the market. And so, you know, up through from 2007 to 2010, so three years there, we were really out kind of evangelizing to the market. And 2010, there was a market change when Google announced that they had been hacked.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  But prior to that, it required a lot of communication and transparency with my investors on what we were seeing and why we were seeing what we were seeing. And the moment you aren't transparent with your investors about the why and the what of your seeing, that's where you start to lose that trust and that's where I think things can fall apart pretty fast. Because a lot of companies are out early in market and that's the nature of tech.

• 16:18Harry Stebbings?

  No, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more in terms of being early in market. You spoke about kind of your investors there. I spoke to Jeff at a conference before the episode and he wanted to ask, what was the motivation for going public when you did? And kind of what are the subsequent pros and cons in your mind?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  We have said from the beginning, since the day I came here, we're building a company for the long term, trying to build a large standalone cybersecurity company. And over the years that we've been building the company, we've been fortunate enough to realize that. And I'm extremely proud of where we sit today. I've always said to everyone on my board and all to all my employees that an IPO is just a step along the way. We knew we would bring the company public someday. I think from a brand standpoint, it helps distinguish the company. Obviously, we get access to public markets if we wanted to do inorganic growth at some period of time. So there's benefits to it. We knew we were going to do it and in the end, on the timing side, we felt like, given where our market's at, now was the right time. We're two quarters into it so far.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  We're still early and we have a lot to prove in the years to head, but so far we like what we see.

• 17:20Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, are there any challenging elements that you maybe didn't perceive? Maybe the visibility, maybe the constant requirement for communication, be it the volatility of stock and the kind of influence that has on team, are there any challenges?

• 17:33Speaker 02

  I think one of the challenges, and many companies have spoken to this, one of the challenges of being a public company is the way that you communicate and the transparency that you exhibit inside the company from a com standpoint has to change. And it's harder perhaps than you would anticipate because especially you want to be able to talk to the team about results the moment a quarter has finished or the moment something's done and now suddenly you have to get your communication changes a bit. And so I think that we knew coming in and that's been the reality there. I think the other piece too is going out and helping public equity buyers understand who we are as a company and the amount of time that that requires for myself and others at the senior level in the company. Those are two big changes.

• 18:14Harry Stebbings?

  That's a heavy undertaking for sure. I do want to touch back on Jeff and the investor base because we've discussed before investor buying, something that you excel at. So what do you think is crucial to gaining investor buy-in and what do you think that you do so well?

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Well, first off, I think every founder, every CEO should look at their board as an extension of their team. They shouldn't think of them as separate. And by an extension of the team, I mean the same characteristics that you're looking for with regards to who you would hire as executives around you and other team members around you are the same characteristics you're looking for in your board. And if your board doesn't exhibit those, then something's not right because they can have a material impact on the life of a company. If you have a board member who you don't connect with that perhaps doesn't have the same core values you do or has a very different perspective on the company that you're building, and this is obviously 101, but I find that many times CEOs or exec team members are willing to overlook the fact that a board member is not necessarily 100% aligned with

• 19:13Speaker 02

  them, but over months and quarters and years, it can have a profound impact on a company. You've got to really view your board as an extension of the team and make sure you're aligned. And the way I do that is the same way I do with my exec team, which is being super transparent on what's working. And what's not working and doing it consistently again and again and never ever not telling them exactly what's happening.

• 19:36Harry Stebbings?

  Now, you said there about kind of the monumental impact that an investor and a board can have. A little birdie, I might have mentioned him before, discussed the building and the scaling of Bit9 and now Carbon Black. And I'd love to hear the role of VCs in the scaling journey and how that was for you, the CEO.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  I was fortunate enough to work with some great investors along our journey here. And you mentioned Jeff. Jeff was with us. He was the founding investor in Carbon Black and Bit9 at the time and now Carbon Black. And I would just restate everything I kind of stated over the last little while in this discussion, which is that my investors were with me through thick and thin because they were part of the team. We were transparent about what we were seeing. Always I was transparent with them about what we were seeing. They were patient. They were mature investors. They didn't have knee jerk reactions. I had no assholes around my board. And so we had a team, and by team, I mean my board and myself and my executive team, who were aligned both on where we were in the market and what the opportunity was ahead of us.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  And what I have seen is that in many cases, when an investor is not as mature or lacks patience, they can really screw up an opportunity because they end up driving short term decisions that will stop a company from having a long term opportunity.

• 20:48Harry Stebbings?

  No, I couldn't agree with you more there. I do want to finish though, Patrick, on the quick fire rounder. My favorite of any interview being I say a short statement and then you give me your immediate thoughts. Are you strapped in and ready?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  I am ready.

• 20:59Harry Stebbings?

  Tell me, Patrick, favorite book and why? What must I be reading on my next trip to Boston?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  A classic and old classic, Built to Last. And I think Built to Last really gets to the heart of how you build a great company.

• 21:09Harry Stebbings?

  What would you most like to change about startups and venture?

• 21:12Speaker 02

  I would change exactly what I just articulated, which is the lack of maturity sometimes on the investment side and the lack of understanding of the impact that the VCs can have on young founders.

• 21:23Harry Stebbings?

  What keeps you up at night, Patrick?

• 21:24Speaker 02

  What keeps me up at night is people. It's people. And because I think as again, as a CEO, a big part of my job is making sure I have the right people around the table. And that's what keeps me up at night.

• 21:34Harry Stebbings?

  The Boston tech ecosystem, pros and cons?

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Oh, Boston tech ecosystem is a great ecosystem. And I think it's one that we're we're seeing a lot of energy around right now. I think we're a little bit more conservative out here than the West Coast for sure. But we've got a great talent here in Boston and myself and Jeff Fagin and many other CEOs here locally are doing a lot to try and promote the community out here.

• 21:55Harry Stebbings?

  What's the challenging element about being in Boston? Is it funding? Is it hiring? Is it access to customers? What's the challenging element?

• 22:02Speaker 02

  I would say that there's great talent here in Boston. Unlike the West Coast, I always say to everyone, if you take 10 A players in Boston, out of those 10 A players, maybe two of them will be in tech. And the other eight will be in financial services or in pharma or biotech or blah, blah, blah. And on the West Coast, you know, out of the 10 A players, nine of them are in tech. So there is more talent on the West Coast just because more people choose this as their career.

• 22:29Harry Stebbings?

  Tell me, your biggest advice to startups in a supremely crowded market?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Be very, very clear about what your differentiation is and be very, very clear about the people you put around your company. And that goes to the who the investors are and who your team is around you, those two things.

• 22:45Harry Stebbings?

  Very hard question for me to ask, bit of self-analysis. What's your biggest strength and weakness, Patrick?

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Biggest strength is being very fixated on why something is what it is, understanding the details behind the decision, behind the strategy. The desire for the details and the understanding is is also a weakness.

• 23:02Harry Stebbings?

  I do want to finish though, on the next five years for you and for Carbon Black, what's the exciting roadmap ahead as a public company?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Our road ahead is, I think we've got a huge opportunity to disrupt a $19 billion market and build a billion dollar software company in cybersecurity and build a leader, continue to build a leader in the space. So I know myself and my team here is really excited about what the future is going to bring.

• 23:23Harry Stebbings?

  Patrick, as I said, I had so many wonderful things from Jeff. I can't thank you enough for joining me and such exciting times I had for Carbon Black.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Harry, I really appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

• 23:34Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, what a company building veteran. I absolutely loved having Patrick on the show there. A huge hand to him for giving up the time. And I also want to say huge thank you to Jeff Fagin, an accomplice. The episode would not have happened without him. So I really do so appreciate that. Likewise, I'd love to see you behind the scenes here at the 20 minute VC. You can do that on Instagram at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs. It'd be great to see you there. But before we leave you today, I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex, the first corporate card for startups. Brex founders Enrique and Pedro built a payments business in Brazil, but found themselves rejected for a corporate card when they were in Y Combinator. They decided to build Brex with instant online signup, no founder liability and limits 10 to 20 times higher than standard cards. Pretty incredible, I know. And you can sign up for Brex and get card fees waived by

• 24:18Harry Stebbings?

  entering the code Harry during signup. Honestly, it truly is a special service. And with Brex in place, we now need a team to really use them. And that's where Terminal comes in. Terminal is a startup that appreciates hiring amazing developers is hard. Plus, it's much harder if you're looking only in a 25 mile radius of your office. So Terminal is your dedicated partner in rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams. How do they deliver both speed and quality? Well, Terminal does this by focusing on everything necessary to successfully source, set up and support these teams. From physical elements like beautiful workspaces and equipment to ongoing resources like HR, payroll, legal, professional learning and development. But don't take my word for this. Take the word of Eventbrite, former 20 VC guest Hims and DialPad, all customers and lovers of Terminal.

• 25:02Harry Stebbings?

  And you can find out more today at Terminal.io. Finally, now we have the team in place as a founder or operator. Your next crucial job is people operations. It could be hiring execs, developing managers, retaining top talent and building a high performing culture. And that's why you need Lattice. Lattice is the number one people management solution for growing companies, helping companies like Asana, Reddit and Cruise build a strong company culture. And with Lattice, it's easy to launch 360 reviews, share ongoing feedback, facilitate one-on-one, set up goal tracking and even run employee engagement surveys. And Lattice is the only solution that combines both performance management and employee engagement. So operators can really make sure their top performers are happy. And Lattice is giving away three months of Lattice free to 20 VC listeners. Just go to lattice.com/20vc.

• 25:46Harry Stebbings?

  That's L A T T I C E dot com forward slash two zero VC. Build an award-winning culture with Lattice, the number one people management solution. I cannot thank you enough as always for tuning in. It means so much to me and I cannot wait to bring you a stellar set of episodes next week.