Scaling Smart with Intentional Leadership with Matthew Rooda at SwineTech

On this episode of Grow Think Tank, Gene Hammett talks with Matthew Rooda, Founder/CEO of SwineTech (ranked No. 247 on the 2025 Inc. 5000), about the real challenges of scaling a business while keeping culture and customers front and center. Matthew shares lessons on why it's critical to address cultural issues early, build a strong foundation for sustainable growth, and truly understand what your customers want, especially in the meat industry. He also dives into the importance of honest customer discovery, hiring the right people, and creating a team environment where collaboration, ownership, and accountability thrive. Matthew also shares practical tips on listening to your team, even in the small things, and why these simple wins can have a big impact on morale and engagement. He closes with advice for leaders on maintaining reasonable expectations, staying adaptable, and continually reinventing themselves and their businesses to navigate growth successfully. If you're a founder or CEO looking to scale without losing your culture or your sanity, this episode is full of actionable insights. Episode Highlights & Time Stamps 4:12 The Journey of Swine Tech 9:31 Defining Scaling Smart 11:30 Building a Strong Foundation 15:56 Hiring the Right Talent 21:24 The Cost of Tolerating Culture 24:14 Key Takeaways for CEOs Key Takeaways ✅Culture is foundational small issues left unchecked can derail growth. ✅True product-market fit comes from deeply understanding your customers' real problems. ✅Growth requires balance: business goals, customer satisfaction, and your team's well-being. ✅Hiring isn't just about talent; it's about mindset and alignment with your mission. ✅Small gestures, like payroll frequency or listening to feedback, can significantly improve morale. ✅Leaders must embrace flexibility, continuous learning, and reinvention to sustain growth. If you're looking to scale your business without losing your culture or your mind, this episode is packed with actionable insights and lessons learned the hard way. This episode is a must-listen for CEOs and executives looking to lead innovation with purpose, scale responsibly with AI, and build cultures where people feel empowered to think About Matthew Rooda Matthew Rooda is the Founder & CEO of SwineTech, an ag-tech company developing automation and data solutions to improve pig care and farm efficiency. He is also the host of the Popular Pig Podcast, where he interviews global leaders in the swine industry. Rooda has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and is an MBA graduate from Johns Hopkins University. LinkedIn: Matthew Rooda (LinkedIn) Company Website: SwineTech Get In Touch with Matt: https://swinetechnologies.com/contact/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The biggest mistakes I've ever felt like I've made probably cut me deeper was tolerating something around culture that you felt as though, you know what, if I just deal with it, we're gonna, we're gonna be better off for it because the work product's really good.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  But then after you finally decide, okay, you know, ma- maybe this isn't okay. And you realize how much worse it was for everybody else because you were the founder, you were kind of shielded from some of the negativity. It actually exacerbated itself externally beyond what you could see. You just feel like shit because you knew you let it persist. And you could have stepped in and stopped it and made life better for everybody else. And so I think as a leader in a scalable and sustainable business, you're not just thinking about yourself, right? You gotta be thinking about everybody else and how do you create that environment?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hebbitt. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? Today, we talk about scaling smart. When you think about building your business, you want to have a strong foundation that allows you to scale. A lot of companies build that foundation doing the minimal things and then they jump into product market fit. Then they jump into sales and then they're working into servicing clients. And then they're thinking about innovation and they forget to go back and rebuild that foundation for more growth.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  And they end up hitting some walls and hitting some, some areas of chaos and friction that keep them from growing their businesses the way they want to. And I work with businesses through this all the time. But today's special guest is Matthew Rooda. He is a co-founder of Swine Tech. They are a point of care platform for the, we'll say, pig industry. They are helping these farmers and the whole industry better serve their markets, better, you know, create better conditions for the pigs, better.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Profits for the actual platforms. All that being said, Matthew and I talk about scaling smart. He goes on to talk about some of the key things about the great people, about developing those people, and also about what really has to happen inside of your organization as you build these foundations. Now, I think you'll find today's episode really something insightful. There's definitely something in here that will help you add value. And it may just be the silly thing that he said that they changed inside their business that changed their culture. It really is quite simple and not free, but almost free. So that's a tease for you to listen to the full episode with Matthew.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  My name is Gene Hammond. I'm a CEO coach. I am really passionate about helping businesses understand growth, understand how to tame the chaos of that. And I believe that one of the most empowering way to do that is becoming a better leader. Now, you may not think about being a better leader. You may think about the sales or the marketing or whatever else is kind of on fire in your business right now. But I will tell you that if you want to build a stronger foundation, you have to be willing to lead differently. If you only have 30 employees and you're looking to stretch out into 50 or 100, it takes a different level of leadership, different level of intentionality. That's exactly what we do. If you want to check out the latest training we have on this, it's absolutely free.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Just go to training.corelevations.com. When you go there, you will find that it is an incredibly free resource for you to get a feel for how to be a better leader, walk you through our five step framework. We'll even help you understand some of the mistakes that are very common that you can avoid and so that you can ask questions with me. And I'm here to coach you through that. And it's actually free experience. Just go to training.corelevations.com. Now here's the interview with Matthew. Hey, Matthew, how are you?

• 4:15Speaker 00

  I'm great.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Well, we're going to have an incredible conversation here about scaling smart. And before we get into that, I'd love for you to tell us about your company Swine Tech.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  So Swine Tech is an ag tech company that focuses on helping pork producers and other producers in animal ag provide high quality care to their animals. It's more or less a point of care platform that helps direct staff to provide that timely care and allow supervisors, managers, owners to evaluate the compliance of that care. So that way they can be more productive, sustainable, and improve the overall animal welfare.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  That's fascinating. I mean, I know you're not gonna be surprised when I say this. You're the first Swine technology company I've had on my podcast.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  It's been a journey. That's for sure. We started the whole business actually around voice recognition. The idea of using voice recognition to identify when a little pig is getting rolled on by its mom. So in the wild, outdoor production, indoor production, the leading cause of mortalities during the birthing process or shortly after is the mother rolling over when the piglets are all running around to try to eat and accidentally squishing one because she's huge. She's four to 600 pounds and they're only a couple pounds. So it's a big size difference. And we thought, why not use voice recognition to hear the wavelengths, frequencies of the squeals, triangulate the position, alert her to stand up with a wearable that used a little

• 5:47Speaker 00

  vibration, track her behavior and health. And we were successful in creating a product that worked, but was not ultimately successful in creating a product that created a sustainable ROI. And so we had to pivot and today now do point of care software inspired by healthcare and ultimately are elevating animal health to that of human health in a lot of different ways. But there's a journey there. That's for sure.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Well, it is unique and I want to mostly focus on scaling smart and the leadership behind your company. But I am kind of curious. What would you think are the horizon? Because I'm seeing different things with the way meat production is going on. Are we in a severe kind of inflection point when it comes to meat production? Because I know things are getting much more expensive. What's your take on that?

• 6:41Speaker 00

  In a way, so beef's been interesting because it's kind of defying supply and demand in a way. The the more the prices go up, at least here recently, people are still buying it. And so there's a lot of elasticity there. Pork and poultry are on the much cheaper end. So they're winning from some of the consumers that are switching. But in the 90s, it was, there was a big push for less fat. And sugar wasn't the worst thing in the world yet. And then ultimately, kind of found out, maybe sugar's not the great thing. And maybe fat's something that's maybe not

• 7:19Speaker 00

  so bad for us. Maybe we should actually get more fats into our diets. And so the the genetics of the animals were selected to be lean in the 90s and the 2000s. And that changes the flavor profile. And so one thing that's very clear for the next 10 years, and that has been going on over the past at least five to 10, is this focus on flavor, this focus on maybe getting some more healthy fats back into the meat. And I think that's going to lead to a lot of a lot of selection and variety for the consumer when it comes to meat. Because it very much became commodity,

• 8:02Speaker 00

  kind of beef is beef, pork is pork. Actually, beef did a really good job focusing on flavor. So I shouldn't say that. It was more pork is pork, chicken is chicken. And pork's going to, in a big way, diversify its flavor portfolio by adding a little bit more fat back into the meat.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  I'm gonna encourage that.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  It tastes good, that's for sure.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  It does taste good and I, you know, I love meat of all sides, guys, I have no real, I eat everything from seafood to beef and all the things in between, but I, I really do like a good pork. So Matthew, I'm excited to talk to you today, not just about, you know, the, the pigs that you protect from their big fat mamas, but talking about, you know, your people that you are leading with intentionality. So I know one of the things that got you to this Inc. list and it's very impressive. I know you know that, you know, growing at

• 9:02Speaker 01

  1,500 plus percent over the three-year period, ranking 247 out of 5,000 privately-held companies is a remarkable feat, especially with 30 employees. So you're not just a small company that just, you know, whatever, grew just a little bit. You grew in an incredible fashion. And you said the primary thing behind that is scaling smart. I think we need to define what scaling smart actually means before we go any further.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  So it's, it's complex. It never stops. But to me, scaling smart is ensuring that the business is focused on, one, the business and profitability, but also the people and the customer. If you're not responsible in your growth, you can flat out run out of money or hire a bunch of people just to have to let them go. And so you're never really growing and sustaining your talent base. It's just a constant churn. And then for the customer, if you aren't sustainable in your growth there, you can quickly either have too many

• 10:16Speaker 00

  bugs and end up with a really crappy product, or not have the support that ultimately is necessary for them to be successful. And so it's a constant balance. And I think

• 10:29Speaker 00

  If you have the luxury of it, building that foundation early, those processes and thinking about all of that from the very start, it doesn't necessarily land on everybody's vanity metric, right? It's not necessarily the things people talk about in the first couple of years of a startup, but when growth does start to happen, you're ready for it. And you've created more of a machine than kind of a wisp in the wind.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  You know, when I'm working with clients and growth and I typically come in and analyze kind of where you are now. And what I'll notice more times than not is that they had some level of intentionality around their culture, their leadership, but then they got to work on actually finding product market fit, you know, marketing, and then, then it became clients and then it was, you know, all the problems and then it was innovation and all that foundational stuff kind of got pushed and, and sometimes forgotten. And what you're saying, I think, is you've got to have a strong foundation to build the scale on. Is that what I'm hearing from you?

• 11:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, you need a strong foundation. You need great people. You need those people to be empowered to go and make decisions. But then I also believe that, at least in a startup, there's, there's obviously a point where maybe it slows down. I haven't found it yet, but the founders need to be involved in sales. They need to be involved in support. I think when they stop being connected to the roots of the business and to the clients themselves, you can start losing track of what is the priority. What was that foundation? And then you evolve into something that is a shell of what it originally was. And I think that's when things start to fall off track and become less sustainable as you grow.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  They certainly can.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  They can.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  If, if your goal is to truly grow, let's say to 10.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  You also have to let go.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  You have to let go of these things. So it, it, and, and it, it makes it harder to stay connected, as you were saying, Matthew.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Hence the balance, right? Is you got to figure out how to stay connected to your roots and to make sure that you are truly sticking to the vision or, or you're, you're, you're, you're driving that vision, but also maintaining connectedness to the foundation that you've built. And

• 12:52Speaker 00

  You have to empower people and let go, but also stay connected. And that is a very, very difficult balance.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it changes. Sometimes you're putting a lot more emphasis on certain things in different cycles. For example, you know, you're onboarding a new team or new team members in different areas and then you have to jump in in different ways. So let's, let's back up a little bit and redefine that foundation that you were talking about, Matthew, because you were talking about starting early and you, I still look at you as 30 employees is pretty early.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  What, what was, what are the core elements of the foundation that you were referring to?

• 13:36Speaker 00

  So when we started the business in 2015 and built the voice recognition technology and ultimately completely pivoted towards point of care in 2020, somewhat COVID related. It feels like we've had two founding stories. And the first one was rooted in growing up in the industry and then working in healthcare and seeing how technology was improving care. And we had a really good product market fit in regards to, you know, the problem that need to be solved, the total addressable market. And so that was a bit easier. Customer discovery was, was weird because you'd ask the, the customer base, is this a problem?

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Would you solve it? Yeah. All the questions and it was obvious. It was a really, really, really hard technical, technical, technical problem. And Mother Nature plays a huge factor in it. On the second side though, when we had to pivot, nothing was more important than the customer discovery that we did. And because of COVID and everybody being home, I was able to interview over 60% of our industry in a month, just on Zoom calls. And fortunately had the relationships to go do that. But at the core, it's understanding, you know, what is the problem? And what is the customer truly looking for? Not what they're asking for, but what they're truly looking for, which takes a little bit of digging to understand the kind of the roots of that.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  And then product market fit, as you said, if there isn't product market fit, and it's, it's not a really big problem that they're willing to spend money on. And in a cost, a cost focused industry such as ours, that's low, low margin, you better get that right because people are going to be excited about a lot of things, a lot of things. A lot of things they'll never pay for. And so you have to be really careful that you can figure out what is actually something they're going to pay for. And then from that point, uh, kind of hits another level, but product market fit is, is, is key.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  When you have been talking about your people and getting the right people in the team, I'm, I'm kind of curious, like, do you have a way to figure out who the right people are?

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, we failed early on with that. With a, with an early stage company, I think most people can experience this. You're really, you're, I don't know desperate is the right word, but you're wanting to move. And so you are kind of desperate to find great talent. And so you meet somebody and you're like, please come join us. This is going to be fun. This is going to be great. We're going to go and you, you lead with vision. And inevitably, I think you make it sound like this is going to be just a lot of fun. And what we learned was we were pulling people from, from environments where they were sick of where they were. And a startup sounded like a lot of fun. Ping pong tables, you get to drink beer at work. Like just all the, all the things that go through your mind when you think startup.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  And we quickly realized that while these people were talented, they weren't in the right place of their life or in the right mindset to be the right fit, to be the right people. And we started to change our narrative in interviews to, this may be the hardest thing you do in your life. Is it going to carry purpose? Absolutely. And is it our responsibility as leaders to make it fun? Yes, but it's going to be hard. And that's what we're looking for. People who are committed to solving a really hard problem, committed to working hard and then taking on the ownership that whether or not that's fun,

• 17:23Speaker 00

  that's on us. Whether or not you have balance, that's on us. But when you are here, it will be hard. And I think that attracts the right people. I've definitely felt as though it's attracted the right people over the past five, six years.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Matthew, it's interesting that you bring that up. One of the client engagements we did a few years ago was a much bigger company. They were still privately held. They were on the Inc. List, but they were in that 250 million range.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Pretty darn big compared to what most people on this podcast are doing. But they, they had a chance to really grow with a new contract and they needed customer service reps. They looked at their, their history of customer service. They had to double their team from like 40 to 80. And they realized that their attrition rate and retention was horrible.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And one of the big problems they had was they made it sound too good. And have you ever heard of the Ernest Shackleton?

• 18:22Speaker 00

  No.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Job posting?

• 18:24Speaker 00

  No.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  I don't remember the details around this, but I, I bring this up with clients all the time. Just to reference what you're talking about is we made it sound fun. We made it sound like, oh, we're going to do some this exciting and you know, we're building this startup culture. But whereas Ernest Shackleton, I want to say 1600s, forgive me if I'm wrong, but he posted this, I'm going to read it. I've got it in front of my screen, but it's, it's very short. Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Let me repeat myself. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  That's awesome.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  And

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could see how that would take the curious and make them say, you know what? That sounds freaking awesome.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Takes a real adventure to take, to sign up for that one, right? We probably wouldn't sign up today. Doubtful return. But if we're too rosy in what this job works in customer service, the problem was, hey, you can work from home and it's gonna be flexible. Whereas you gotta plug into computer to get the calls through you, which doesn't, is not flexible.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  All that being said, you, you really highlight something that, you know, you gotta find your way in hiring and the first hires you make, sometimes they're great, sometimes they don't work out as you trans, as you scale to that next level, and I'm sure you've found that.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  What else would you add into their, this vision of, of getting great, great people on board?

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think there's, there's constant development and management, right? It's not just about getting the right people, but it's about ensuring that the right people coexist well and are, are driving and heading in the same direction. The, there are a couple of things that we've really focused on. The dynamics between departments. You hear time and time again where animosity towards departments can drive just great divisions within businesses. And it's always somebody else's fault, it's another department's fault, ops sales overpromised or support messed up or engineering, it never works. And so anytime we heard that language, we were just like, stop.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  And one of the common things we hear about, hear from our team today is that just doesn't exist. They haven't been in an environment where it's, when a problem comes up, it's finger, it's not finger pointing, it's okay, how can we jump in and help? Another thing was kind of the water cooler talk. If it's not productive, don't say it. And you remove a lot of that negativity of just shit talking people or, or letting that kind of build. And have we had to fire a couple of people? Yes.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  It's not easy. Were they really good people? Yes. Were they good for everybody else? No. I'd say one of the, the biggest mistakes I've ever felt like I've made, probably cut me deeper, was

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Tolerating something around culture that you felt as though, you know what? If I just deal with it, we're gonna, we're gonna be better off for it because the work product's really good. But then after you finally decide, okay, you know, ma- maybe this isn't okay. And you realize how much worse it was for everybody else because you were the founder. You were kind of shielded from some of the negativity. It actually exacerbated itself externally beyond what you could see. You just feel like shit because you knew you let it persist. And you could have stepped in and stopped it, made life better for everybody else. And so I think as a leader in a scalable and sustainable business, you're not just thinking about yourself, right?

• 22:18Speaker 00

  You gotta be thinking about everybody else and how do you create that environment? As, and it's sometime, sometimes it just seems silly. The things that people find value in that are going to create a good culture. And it doesn't make sense, but if it works, it works. And so also being flexible to understanding what do your people need? And that might not be what you need, but if it's what they all need and it makes sense for the business. Cool. There's an opportunity you can take, you can take advantage of and an offer to everybody.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  I know we're wrapping it up, but my curiosity is killing me on what might be silly, but it actually has made a, a, a good impact on your culture.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  So I might look dumb here. I don't know, but we've, we always did monthly paychecks.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Going bi-weekly. Now this isn't less culture as much, but people are like, oh, if I got bi-weekly paychecks, that'd be so much better.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Okay. I, I guess we'll switch to bi-weekly. It's an easy thing. It's cheap. Sure. If it makes everybody happier. And there's, there's lots of other little things that pop up, but sometimes something as simple as that, which I budget on a monthly basis, never would have thought of it. But apparently it makes people feel like they're getting extra money because they're getting paid twice a month. And I mean, when you just kind of listen to some of the details, you'll pick up little nuggets like that that make a difference and really don't cost anything.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  You shouldn't have shame on that one. It's, it's just listening to people and again, you know, I know that that's probably just a, a call to your payroll provider. Saying, what would it cost me to do this? And they probably gave you a price and it was like, oh, that's not much.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  My co-founder and I were like, okay.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  And that's a really good example of some of the simple things and listening to your people. Matthew, you've been here talking about scaling smart. I know we've, we've kind of talked a lot, a lot of different things. Is there anything we left out of this conversation of scaling smart that you would share with other CEOs? That were looking to have the similar success to that you have?

• 24:23Speaker 00

  I would say reasonable expectations. But don't put your foot off the gas and that's, that's kind of another element of, of balance. Another thing we do in our, in our culture, which has helped with scaling is strong opinions loosely held. So we're going to come in and if you have a, an idea, you have something that you think is important, I want you to fight for it.

• 24:50Speaker 00

  But when you're wrong, you're wrong and we need to adjust and move forward. And that's worked really well for us. I think also continually reinforcing to the team that's what has allowed us to be successful thus far. Could be our downfall going forward. We are going to constantly need to be reinventing ourselves as you scale. And as people, we're going to constantly need to be reinventing ourselves. The, the business is changing all the time and if we can't be flexible as individuals and in our processes and as a business. You, you're just going to flatline or, or completely bust. And I think having the right mentors, advisors, coaches along the way makes a big difference in that.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Because when you're in the business, it's hard sometimes to understand if you're going through some of those inflection points or certain people maybe. And having the ability to step back, acknowledge that and not just change yourself. But also be there to support your team, your managers, your employees as they're going through that transition as well. You also have your customer base, right? Some of them are going to be used to having all of your time at the very beginning. You gotta figure out a way to help your customers understand that the relationship will evolve while the value they're receiving shouldn't change. How it looks might. And so if you just set clear expectations on the front end

• 26:16Speaker 00

  that things will always be changing, I think you're setting that mindset up for success. And, and that's the people, the people that run the business who, who work in it and the people who, who fund it either as investors or as customers. If they're not on board with change, you're kind of screwed.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Matthew, we've had a great conversation about scaling smart and I appreciate you being here and doing what you do with Swine Technologies because I love.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  Thank you very much for having me today.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Another great episode here on the podcast. If you want to be a better leader and scaling smart is, is part of your journey, hopefully today is something that you can take action on. Now, if you have any specific questions around where you are, then you can sign up for the training, training.corelevations.com. Jump, jump in with a few other CEOs. It's always an intimate experience, but you can come in and ask real questions about what's going on. We'll also give you some insight and tools and frameworks that will help you become a better leader and prepare your company to scale to that next level. All that being said, it's absolutely free. Just go to training.corelevations.com. When you think of growth and you think of leadership, think of growth, think data. As always, leave your courage. We'll see you next time.